Ginny Weasley and the Curse of the Firstborn
by annie penrose
Summary: Ginny Weasley is bound by a blood curse to marry Draco Malfoy and to live with him a year and a day. What will happen when she finds him to be...not exactly the man she thought he was? Love, possibly?
1. Prologue and Chapter 01

_**A/N**: My sincere apologies for the formatting trouble that made it neccessary for me to take this story down after I'd posted the first 13 chapters. I hope this time it's here to stay. Thanks to all of you who left reviews the first time around; unfortunately, your reviews are gone for good, but I hope you'll take the time to review it again this time! This story wouldn't be here at all, if not for **Gabriele**, who did the formatting for me, and to whom I'm truly grateful. Thanks also to **Lina**, my beta-reader over at Checkmated, who is helping make this story better in every way._

**Prologue**

_The Druid stepped into the middle of the sacred circle. Guarded by the standing stones, intersected by ley lines from a hundred lands, it marked the very soul of the earth, and the air within it shimmered and pulsed with magic older than the most ancient memory of the most ancient man. Before him stood the man and his bride. Edward Wheezley took Camille Malfoy's hand in his, and gazed into her gray eyes; bright eyes, so full of life and promise. He marveled at the generosity of a fate that decreed she should love him: That she should belong to him. Slowly, deliberately, he placed the ring over the tip of her fourth finger._

_"You are Earth," he began in his deep, slow voice. He moved the ring over the tip of her middle finger. "Wind." Her first finger: "Water."_

_He never got the chance to finish._

"Reducto!" "Impedimenta!" "Stupefy!" _Around them, the darkness of the night exploded into streaks of red light, and the air was thick with shouted curses. With bodiless voices. With an enemy they could not see. The candles blew over and extinguished; spells flew through the air, sparking and ricocheting off each other. Lights crisscrossed in the middle of the circle, blue and red and white._

_"Get down!" Edward shouted. "Run!"_

_They ran, fumbling for each other's hands, trying to keep low, to get away from the madness erupting around them. There was a burst of red flame and a sudden explosion and then, only darkness and silence. For a moment, there was nothing else. Then someone muttered _"Lumos"_ and a single wand lit up the night._

_At the edge of the stone circle, their hands still clasped, lay Edward and Camille, unmoving. Beyond the sacred stones the Druid sensed several figures melting away into the night. He did not try to follow them. He knew who they would be: Francois, eldest son of Malfoy, would be the one. The other would be Edward's younger brother, Sian._

_The feud, come to a head this night, had begun generations before, when a Malfoy killed a Wheezley in a pub brawl — whether by accident or design, no one could remember. All their lives, Edward and Camille had been warned against each others' families, trained against them — _bred_ against them. Against the dangers of alliance, against allowing the fires of enmity to ever burn too low. How they had ever come to fall in love with each other was as much a mystery to them both as it was to their families, but it had happened. And every Malfoy and Wheezley from France to Britain had cried out — ironically, in one accord — against the union. Between them, they had done everything within their powers to prevent it. They had pled, threatened, cajoled and bribed; Edward and Camille were not to be swayed. They loved each other, they said, with the kind of love that has a magic all its own: The strongest kind of magic, and it drew them together, and was not to be resisted until they belonged to one another._

_It appeared that now the sons of Malfoy and Wheezley had chosen to take matters into their own hands. They would be dealt with later._

_The Druid knelt, instead, by the still forms of the lovers. He saw that Edward's head was bleeding, and that blood came from Camille's mouth. It ran, rich and red and lifeless, down the sides of their heads and soaked into the ground beneath them._

_"So my friends," he whispered, into the night. "Blood has been spilled to prevent your union: a high price to pay for the low crime of loving unwisely." He dipped the fingertips of one hand into the blood on Edward's head. His other hand, he touched to Camille's mouth. Then, he rose up to his knees and thrust his arms to the sky. He cried out, a strange, primal, keening cry, and when he spoke again, it was as though something else — a magic from outside himself — spoke through him._

_"Now, as a high price has been exacted from you, I declare this night that a high price will be exacted from those who did this abominable thing. From this moment, your blood will cry out from the ground and not be satisfied until it is atoned for." He reached out and gently closed Edward's open eyes._

_"Atoned for by blood or by marriage."_

**Chapter 1**

Filius J. Flubberbuster stared bleakly through the wrought-iron gates that guarded the mansion before him, and groaned. He should have been home by now. Normally, by 5:42 on a Friday evening, he would have traded his boots for a pair of slippers and have been settling into his easy chair with a cup of tea. A cup of tea laced with Ogden's Old Firewhisky, he thought longingly, and gripped the bars of the gate. And he might have been home too, except that, just at 4:58 that afternoon, a baby had been born.

When the Curse-Minder had sounded in the office of Magical Curses and Contracts where Filius was Senior Secretary, every head in the office had jerked up to watch the message board by the door. When the message about the baby's birth had finished writing itself, Filius had looked around to find every single desk in the office suddenly empty. He had to give credit to the Juniors and Assistants in the office: they weren't stupid. None of them was about to stick around long enough to be assigned to this case.

He had sighed then, and turned his eyes determinedly away from the department clock, where the hand bearing his name was almost pointing to "Flooing Home." He reached up and caught the roll of parchments that swooped through the door at that moment, and took his cloak from the peg on the door. It looked like he was going to be the one to put his head into the serpent's mouth tonight.

As he stood outside the gates of Malfoy Mansion, he thought about the parchment in his hand and what it contained. For all he dreaded the encounter ahead, the professional part of him was intrigued by the mission. It was a rare curse, one that had not been called to account since the year 13 B.C.: The Curse of the Firstborn. He knew the words by heart. He should have: he'd been reading them over and over to himself from the time he'd left the office this afternoon:

_The Firstborn Daughter of the one   
Shall wed the other's Firstborn Son.   
And live together as husband and wife   
A year and a day, else forfeit the life   
Of the Firstborn Child on either side   
So shall the blood curse be satisfied._

There were Standards spelled out as well, specific to these families:

Since the original Firstborn Daughter, Camille Malfoy, had been twenty-five years old when she had been murdered on her wedding day, the Standard specified that the Firstborn Daughter who would take her place must marry by the age of twenty-five.

The wedding must take place in the same venue as the aborted one had, over one hundred years ago; a Ceremony of Rings within the Sacred Stone Ring.

The marriage must last a year and a day, according to the standard by which the Wizarding World had, until a century ago, judged a marriage to be successful.

Lucius Malfoy was going to hate this.

There was nothing else for it. He held his wand tip to the small square panel set in the stone column to the right of the gate.

"Ministry of Magic," he said wearily.

A moment later the gates swung silently in and Filius started up the walk. In spite of his trepidation, he looked around himself appreciatively as he approached the mansion. The wide walk was bordered on both sides with boulders of glossy black obsidian and beyond them the deep, velvet green lawns rolled away to tiers of spruce forest. He skirted a fountain in the middle of the walk, an iron statue of the Medusa, which spouted water from the mouths of the snakes that were her hair. It was almost lovely, in a... sinister way.

He had ascended the wide, marble steps of the house and was reaching for the cobra-head shaped doorknocker when this door, too, swung open. He looked down into the bulging eyes of the house-elf who had opened the door.

"Ministry of Magic," he told it.

The house-elf bowed low. "If Sir will follow me."

Filius followed the little creature through the cavernous entrance hall and through a complicated series of plushy-carpeted corridors. He had never been completely at ease with the way the rich kept these — these _slaves_ to do all their work for them. He supposed his objection to it hearkened back to his University days in the 1960's — Equality for the Masses, and all that rot. Those days were long over of course, but the creatures still made him feel slightly guilty, bobbing about in those filthy rags they wore, saying, 'yes Sir' and 'no Sir', groveling and cringing. Filius always felt the absurd impulse to tip them for their services.

They stopped before a massive pair of walnut doors. The house-elf knocked twice before throwing his little shoulder against one of the doors and heaving it open. They stepped into a large study, furnished in purple velvet and deeply-burnished walnut paneling.

"Ministry of Magic to see Master," announced the house-elf.

A man rose from his seat behind the desk. "Leave us, Dobby."

"Very good, Master." With a series of little, scraping bows, the house-elf backed his way out the door, pulling it closed behind him.

"Ministry of Magic, eh?" said the man behind the desk, in a not entirely friendly way. He stepped forward and offered his hand, which Filius shook. It was icy cold, the grip a little too hard, as though the man wanted to make it clear which one of them was going to be in control of this conversation.

"Lucius Malfoy, as I'm sure you are well aware, or else you wouldn't be here. And my wife, Narcissa." He waved his hand to the right where a cool, regal-looking blonde was perched on a settee. A small child played with a toy broomstick on the carpet near her feet. The woman looked blankly at Filius — _through_ him, really — before turning her attention back to the child. Lucius himself was a tall man, much taller than Filius, with sleek blond hair and chilly gray eyes. He peered down at the Ministry Official as though he were examining a particularly loathsome specimen of mold in a petri dish.

"Well, what can we do for you?" he said imperiously.

"Filius Flubberbuster, sir, Department of Magical Curses and Contracts." Filius willed himself not to click his heels and bow.

Lucius' gaze travelled slowly up and down him, and Filius was painfully conscious of his own thinning hair and bulging midriff. Before this wealthy, sophisticated man he felt clumsy and plebian and about twelve years old. _Just do your job_, he told himself desperately.

"I am here to inform you," he began, a trifle too loudly, "that at 4:58 this afternoon Molly Weasley, wife of Arthur Weasley, gave birth to a baby girl."

Lucius frowned, a faint furrow that appeared between his well-shaped eyebrows but hardly extended to mar the calm of his perfect face. After a pause, his frown gave way to a smile, and he allowed a low, indulgent chuckle. "A girl! Very funny, Flubberbuster. A good joke! But you won't trip me up on that one." He shook his finger playfully at Filius. "It is not possible that Arthur Weasley has fathered a _girl_." Although he smiled, Lucius Malfoy did not look amused in the least. On the contrary, he looked quite dangerous.

He went on. "You are either joking or you are misinformed, Flubberbuster. Weasleys don't _have_ girls, you see." He smiled as though he and Filius were sharing a private joke, laughing over someone else's stupid mistake. "They don't have _girls_ any more than _Malfoys_ have girls."

Filius did not get the joke. "You... you say that, sir," he stuttered, "as if it were a foregone conclusion."

"Perhaps it... _is_," said Lucius, slowly and succinctly, as if giving a rather obvious hint to a slightly dim child.

Filius was puzzled. "Certainly sir, girls are not common in either family, but I assure you that not only is it _possible_, but it has _happened_."

Lucius' expression of amusement turned to one of anger. Filius forged ahead. "I am therefore obliged to deliver this to you..." he held out a roll of parchments, sealed and tied with the green Ministry of Magic ribbon. "It is the Curse Standard pertaining to Arthur Weasley's daughter and your..." he glanced uneasily at the child playing on the carpet "your son."

Lucius' voice grew deadly low and calm. " Narcissa," he said, his eyes holding Filius' in a way that Filius found frightening, " Narcissa, take Draco to the nursery."

The woman did not argue. With a frightened glance at the Secretary, she scooped the child off the floor and, ignoring his screams of protest at being separated from his broomstick, hurried out of the study.

When they had gone, Lucius indicated the seat she had vacated on the settee. Filius sat, noting vaguely that the seat was not warm as a seat usually is when someone has been sitting there. As if there were no warmth at all in the woman...

Lucius settled himself behind his desk again, folding his hands carefully, ensuring that he was fully in control of himself before he spoke. When he did speak, his voice was chillingly quiet.

"You are speaking, I believe, of the Curse of the Firstborn."

Filius nodded.

"I know all about the curse," Malfoy continued. "And I am going to share a little secret with you, Flubberbuster ." He leaned forward. Unconsciously, Filius recoiled.

"I happen to know," Lucius said, in a low voice, "that the ancestors on both sides — Malfoy and Weasley — took great care to ensure that the Curse of the Firstborn would never become an... _issue_." His voice hissed strangely over the word, and Filius shuddered. Lucius lowered his voice still more, so that the Secretary had to strain to hear. "Do you think it is an accident that neither the Malfoys nor the Weasleys have borne a girl in over two hundred years? It is no accident! Our ancestors arranged it, you see, as a means of... er... _circumventing_ the Curse. A Filial Charm, I believe it was. No girls in either family line, only boys. That's what the Filial Charm does."

Filius frowned. "But sir, Filial Charms are only ninety-nine percent effective."

Lucius went on as though Filius had not spoken. "You'll understand why then, in light of all provision against this very thing coming to pass, I must question whether... whether or not the brat is really Arthur's. If she is not, of course, the Curse will not pertain to her. Or to us." Lucius sat back, looking extremely smug.

Filius tried not to let his loathing for the man show in his face. Arthur and Molly Weasley were one of the most devoted couples he had ever known. He'd eat his own wand sideways if the baby wasn't Arthur's. He said none of this to Malfoy however, only stood and placed the roll of parchments on the man's desk.

"It is your right, of course sir, to demand a full enquiry into the matter. If your investigation unearths foul play, the case will be taken up with the MLES. Otherwise, you can expect to hear from my department again when your son comes of age." He went to the door, resisting the sudden, obsequious urge to knuckle his forelock at Malfoy. "I'll find my own way out. Good day to you sir."

It was not until he had hurried down the walk and was safely outside the iron gates that Filius felt he could breathe easily again. He pulled out a handkerchief and mopped his forehead. On the whole, he thought, it could have gone much worse.

At the end of the drive was an Apparition Port; Filius headed toward it. Somehow, he dreaded the next visit more than the last one. It was one thing to bring bad news to a slimy git like Lucius Malfoy, but quite another to bring it to a respected friend.

He stepped into the Port and pulled out his wand. Giving it a twist, he muttered, "St. Mungo's Hospital, Birthing Centre."


	2. Chapter 02

_**A/N**:Thanks a hundred times over again, to **Gabriele**, who does the formatting for me, and to **Lina**, my beta-reader._

**Chapter 2**

_Twenty-five years later_

Ginny Weasley sat at the table in the kitchen of the Burrow with her parents. The little room, which always looked much too small when it was filled with her brothers, seemed almost too big now, with just the three of them there. Her parents had asked her to come for dinner.

"Where is everyone?" she asked, helping herself to a Yorkshire pudding.

"We thought just the three of us tonight," began Molly, a little too brightly. At her mother's tone, Ginny looked up.

"Why? What is it? Something's wrong –"

"Not wrong, Love," her father interjected. "Just, your birthday's coming soon... Twenty-five years old! It's a big milestone..."

"Dad," Ginny said blankly. "I just had a birthday three weeks ago. Why the hurry to get me to my next one?"

Arthur floundered. "We thought it was time... That is, hadn't you better...?" he looked helplessly at his wife.

Molly took a deep breath. There was no sense tiptoeing around the subject. It wasn't as if they hadn't talked about it plenty of times over the years, and Ginny was a big girl now. A responsible girl. An adult.

"The truth is, we're wondering what you intend to do about Draco Malfoy." She watched her daughter's face change, but steeled herself to remain impassive. In a family as large as hers, she had learned there was not the luxury of being able to cater to one child's whims when there was another child who had real _needs._ A family looked out for one another; one sacrificed, when necessary, for the good of the whole unit. And right now, there was more than one Weasley child's future at stake. She forged ahead. "You're twenty-five next August, Ginny, and the Curse Standard says you have to marry him by the time you turn twenty-five. Isn't it time to start thinking about it? Eleven months is more than enough time to plan a nice wedding."

Ginny could feel the blood rush to her head, filling her ears with a dizzying roar, blackening the edges of her vision. Carefully, she put down her fork and took a couple of deep breaths. She heard herself say, "it's not as though I don't think about it every single day of my life, Mum." She stared at a nick in the scrubbed table top, trying to focus while her vision cleared.

"Perhaps I should say it's time to _do_ something about it then," her mother amended tartly.

Ginny reached over and began picking at the nick with her thumbnail, and said nothing.

"Ginny, you know we would never ask you to do something like this just for us –" began Arthur, "It's just that, well, _Bill_..." He spread his hands helplessly.

They had told Ginny about the Curse when she was fourteen, when she'd come home from Hogwarts after her third year, carrying a rather obvious torch for Harry Potter. They'd thought it best she should be fully aware of how things stood, before she'd started having boyfriends of her own.

She, as their firstborn daughter, was bound by a blood Curse to marry Draco, the firstborn son of Lucius Malfoy. And she would have to marry him by her twenty-fifth birthday, or their firstborn child, Bill, would pay with his life.

She had handled the news remarkably well too. But then, Bill was her favorite brother and, with the hero-worship of fourteen years old, she had almost welcomed the chance to do something so big for him. And at that age, Arthur remembered, youth was forever. Twenty-five was something that pertained to old people. No girl, at the age of fourteen, seriously believed she would one day be twenty-five. That she would one day be married. It was easy to agree to something you essentially didn't think would ever happen.

But all through her years at school and afterward, during the war, Ginny had been as good as her word. When her parents had broached the subject from time to time she had never wavered. At school, Draco Malfoy had been a miserable, mean-spirited creature; she had despised him thoroughly, and with good reason. His father was a known Death Eater who went down with Voldemort in the final battle. Weasleys and Malfoys had hated each other for centuries. In spite of all of it, she had been staunch. She understood as well as her mother did what it meant to be part of a family. Before she turned twenty-five she would marry him. She would marry him, as prescribed, in a Ceremony of Rings at the Sacred Stone Ring. She would do what it took to stay married to him for a year and a day and then, when the Curse was broken and Bill's life was secured she would end the marriage and get on with the rest of her life. She loathed the thought of it, dreaded the day it would happen but with all Ginny's failings, she had never lacked for courage. She would do it.

She looked up at her father. "I know Dad," she said. "I know I have to face it sooner or later." She gave a shaky laugh. "I've got in the habit of telling myself, _Just one more month. I'll think about it next month._ I keep hoping that, somehow, the day will never come, but I suppose that's too much to hope for, isn't it?"

"It's only for a year," her mother said, trying to sound bracing but failing miserably.

"A year and a day," Ginny corrected her with an ironic little smile. "But you're right. I should be able to do anything for a year. It's not the end of the world." Privately, she wondered if that were true. A year married to that Son-of-a-Death-Eater Draco Malfoy might well be the end of the world for her. She shuddered.

"You're still not to tell Bill," she added. "Or any of the boys for that matter. They'd only get all heroic and come swooping down on some sort of Rescue Mission, trying to pull me out of it. The Curse Standard says if we're not married a year and a day, it invalidates the whole marriage. Where would that leave Bill?"

They sat in silence for several minutes, pushing their food around on their plates. At last Molly spoke in a choked voice. "Ginny, you can't know how proud that makes us; you sacrificing to save your brother's life..."

Ginny grimaced. "Please don't, Mum."

Arthur blew his nose. "If there's anything we can do to make this easier for you..."

She looked up at him and with a sudden flash of anger, said, "Dad, why was he never convicted as a Death Eater after the war?"

Her father looked up from his handkerchief in surprise, and gave her a long, appraising stare. When he answered her, he spoke slowly, choosing his words. "I think, rather than ask _why_, the most important thing to remember is that he _wasn't_ convicted. In fact –"

"That doesn't mean he wasn't one!" Ginny interrupted him savagely. "He was a Slytherin! He used to brag, at school, that he would take the Dark Mark before he came of age. Lucius Malfoy was convicted and rotted away in Azkaban! Of _course_ Draco was a Death Eater! With a father like that, how could he _not_ be?"

"Ginny," Arthur said quietly, "I think it's a mistake to judge a man by what his father was."

She ignored him. "He just wants to watch his step around me. Let me find _one hint_ – one – of the Dark Arts being practiced in his house and I swear I'll have him thrown in Azkaban so fast it'll make his head spin." She stabbed fiercely at a potato.

Arthur put his hand on hers. "I'm confident you won't have to do that," he said.

Ginny stood up. "Well _I'm_ not confident of it. Not one bit. But I'll be able to give you the full report, won't I? Just as soon as the marriage is over. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a headache. I'm going home."

Her parents exchanged anxious looks.

"Oh, quit worrying," she snapped. "I'll owl him before I go to bed."

Sarah Park-Winston, Ginny's roommate, was lolling on the sofa when Ginny stepped out of the fireplace at the flat they shared.

"You're home!" She exclaimed with a wide grin. "I wasn't expecting you for ages yet. I was just about to stir myself and go for take-away. How do you feel about Chinese? Or aren't you hungry? I suppose your mum's fed you up already..."

Ginny only scowled at her and made for the kitchen, where she waved her wand over the kettle and rummaged in the cupboard for the bottle of Wanamacher's Aged Elderberry Spirits.

"Have you read _Witch Weekly_ yet?" called Sarah, from the front room. It didn't seem to matter to her that Ginny was _clearly_ seething.

"There's the best article about Quicksilver, you should read it."

Ginny made a derisive noise which her roommate either didn't hear or didn't acknowledge.

She nattered on, unperturbed. "It says here,

_"Fantastic rescues of Muggles continue to be reported from Kensington to Kent. On 21 August, a Muggle boy, his leg caught in a railroad tie, was lifted from the path of an oncoming train by what the MLES later defined, from residue left at the scene, as a clear case of magical intervention. Later that same day, an entire Muggle family, trapped on the 10th floor of the burning Park Hotel in London, found themselves 'gently lifted, as though on a cool breeze,' out the window and onto the sidewalk below. Again, MLES officials, acting after Muggle firefighters cleared the building, identified resonances in the air that they say can only be attributed to the use of a wand at the scene_.

"And both times," Sarah continued, "they found his signature –" she paused, probably consulting the magazine article – "it says,

_"In the first instance, the Mercury's wings that have become Quicksilver's signature were found burned into a railroad tie. In the second, they were drawn in the ash on the side of the ruined building."_

"Isn't that _romantic_?" She heaved a sighed. "I wish someone could get a photo of him."

Ginny stuck her head out the kitchen doorway as the teakettle began to shriek, "Teatime! Teatime! Teatime!" She twitched her wand at it and the noise stopped.

"Sarah, you are possibly the only girl in Britain, over the age of fourteen, who actually believes in Quicksilver."

Her roommate sat up. She waved the magazine at Ginny.

"It's all right here! They wouldn't make something like this up."

Ginny glared at her. "Oh no? Why are those stories never in _The Daily Prophet_ then? If those things really happened, I think they would have found their way into the _mainstream_ newspaper by now. Besides, Sarah, I'm a _Ministry Auror_. Don't you think I'd know if this bloke were real?" Her red head disappeared into the kitchen briefly, before she reappeared and made her way back into the front room, a cup of tea-and-elderberry in her hand.

"I told you," she continued, "that _Witch Weekly_ was going to the hobgoblins when that Lovegood chap took it over."

"Why," Sarah reasoned with her, "would you know, just because you're an Auror? Aurors don't bother themselves with Muggles who need rescuing, do they? Unless the Muggles are being tortured by Death Eaters that is, and we all know _those_ days are over." She made a face at Ginny and clutched the magazine protectively to her chest, watching as Ginny sipped her tea. Suddenly, she frowned. Leaning forward, she sniffed suspiciously at the steam from the mug.

"Why are you drinking? Did something happen at your mum and dad's?"

Ginny didn't answer. Sarah knew about the curse – a little. After sharing her flat for six years, there was little about Ginny she _didn't_ know – but would she understand what Ginny was about to do – _had_ to do?

"What?" Sarah prodded. She leaned forward, her voice urgent. "Are you pregnant?"

Ginny was startled. "No! How could I be pregnant?"

Her friend crossed her arms and gave her an appraising stare. "_You_ tell _me_."

Ginny rolled her eyes. "Great Morgana, Sarah! I'd have to be married for that, wouldn't I?"

"Not necessarily. Muggles do it all the time."

"Tuh! Do I look like a Muggle to you? No, Sarah, I am not pregnant."

Sarah raised her eyebrows. "Well, then?" She knew Ginny too well.

Ginny took a big swallow of her tea, nearly choking on the elderberry spirits she had laced it with. She gave Sarah her most level look.

"I'm going to marry him."

Sarah then demonstrated one of the qualities that made her such an invaluable friend. That was, she did not jump up and start waving her arms about. She merely narrowed her eyes at her best friend and said coolly, "Malfoy?"

Ginny gave her an arch look. "Who else?"

Sarah sat back and regarded Ginny. Then, without a word, she got up, went to the kitchen, and came back with two goblets and the entire bottle of elderberry spirits. She set it all on the coffee table between them.

"All right, start talking," she said, uncorking the bottle.

It was suddenly more than Ginny could do to hold back the tears.


	3. Chapter 03

_**A/N**: Thank you to everyone who's reviewed so kindly. And thank you, a million times over, to my formatting monkey **Gabriele**, who's put so much hard work into this story._

**Chapter 3**

Draco Malfoy sat before the fire in his library and read the letter in his hand for the tenth time since it had been delivered by a barn owl, twenty minutes earlier.

_Malfoy,_ (he read)   
_Next August 11th, I will turn twenty-five years old. If you're interested in saving your own neck, I suppose we had better talk about getting married before then. I can meet you at the Blue Onion Pub in Yew Street on Friday at 6.00 to discuss particulars._   
_G. Weasley_

It was terse to the point of rudeness, but reading it, he felt a weight he had not even known he was carrying lift from his mind. They had never mentioned the Curse to one another, even when they had been at school together, and Draco had determined long ago that he would never ask her to marry him.

There had been a time when he would rather have died than to marry a Weasley. Those days might be over, but old habits died hard, and he still had never been able to come to the point of begging one of them to save his life. He had preferred to go on hoping for a letter just like this, rather than to put himself at her mercy. She hated him. He had no doubt that, were it not for the sake of her eldest brother, he would be living out the final year of his life right now.

But it was all right. She was going to – well, he preferred to think of it as a temporary political alliance. That was it: she was going to ally with him, for a short time, to achieve an end necessary to them both. It was certainly not, by any stretch of the imagination, going to be a m-m-. He shuddered. He couldn't even say the word in his own mind. He read the letter one more time, whistling softly as he skimmed over the words. If the tone of it was any indication, living with her was going to make for one hell of an unpleasant year. But at least – and this was the point, after all – he would be alive at the end of it. He smiled grimly to himself as he picked up his quill to write his reply.

Friday night at 6.02, Draco was nursing a pint of Brunhilda's Best Bitter at a table in The Blue Onion and silently fuming. She was late. What if she didn't show? What if this was her idea of a joke, set up to have a laugh at him?

He had always been nasty to her, back at school, he had no trouble admitting that. Well, it wasn't as though she hadn't deserved it, _asked_ for it, even. She was an easy mark, then: Potter's little ginger-haired groupie. They had both secretly, silently known they would one day come to this, and yet she had always looked right _through_ him, as though she found nothing worth looking twice at. She had been too busy always looking at Potter instead. And Draco had made her pay for it, in a hundred little ways, all those years at school. He had made sure that if he was going to have to marry her one day, then she would be just as miserable about it as he was.

The rub was that now she held his life in her hands. Perhaps she intended to make him suffer, to raise his hopes then stand him up? Well, he did not have to wait around to be made a joke of. He had just stood up to leave when the door opened and she came in.

He hadn't seen her since he'd left school nine years ago but he would have recognised that shocking Weasley hair anywhere. He allowed himself a quick, silent sigh that might have been relief, though he chose to think of it as resignation, and sat back down.

He watched her as she squinted against the dim light of the pub, searching for him. She was short. He couldn't make out anything else about her shape, as she was wearing her work robes. For all he could tell she might, underneath them, be built like her mother. He buried his face in his stein and took a deep pull of his bitter.

He would have known, even without the gold MM embroidered on the shoulder of her robes, that she was a Ministry Auror. Business had been slow for the Aurors , since the war had put an end to the Death Eaters. He knew she was the only one to have been accepted into Auror training in the last five years. He knew that she specialised in Defensive Charm work, travelling around Europe, building wards and spells around secure areas. He knew she lived with a flatmate on the cheap side of London, that she dated one or two men sporadically, followed rugby as well as Quidditch, and that she was considered good at her job. He had done his homework on Ginny Weasley.

Her hair was pulled into an untidy knot at the back of her head. He couldn't see her face clearly from that distance, but he noticed that several of the men at the bar had turned and were eyeing her appreciatively. One of them spoke to her, and Draco watched her shake her head as though annoyed by what the man had said.

He knew she had caught sight of him when she stilled so abruptly and completely that she might have been turned to stone. After a long moment, she glanced at the door, and then back at him. The man at the bar said something to her again and put his hand on her arm. She spoke sharply to him and shrugged off his hand and that seemed to make up her mind for her. She made her way around the tables to where he sat, and automatically, spurred by good breeding and years of proper training, Draco stood.

"Malfoy." Her tone was flat, betraying nothing of what she must have felt.

"Weasley," he returned, just as evenly. "What are you drinking?"

She hesitated. "Red wine." She slid onto the settle across the table from him and added, "Please."

He pushed his way through the jostling crowd around the bar and examined the meagre wine list written up in chalk on the slate board above the bar. He had never heard of any of the choices, a mark, he thought irritably, of the low quality of the pub she had chosen. He ordered the most expensive merlot – which at four Sickles a goblet, couldn't have been all that good, and when the bartender brought it, he carried it back to the table and sat down.

He set it in front of her and she began immediately to fiddle with the stem while staring determinedly at the tabletop. He waited for her to speak but she said nothing. She was the one who had called this meeting, he thought crossly. Was _he_ supposed to do all the talking? The silence stretched out. She was determined to make it difficult for him, then. As if it weren't insufferable enough, the thought of living with her for a year – legally married and all – now she was going to make him _ask_ her for the privilege. Rebellion, and a regrettable streak of recklessness asserted itself: He would _never_ ask her.

"Weasley," he prodded. When she looked up, he was surprised to see that her eyes were bright with unshed tears. It wasn't what he had expected. He sighed. Crying women were a subject at which he'd never been very adept. Just now, it worried him.

"Weasley," he repeated sharply, "Can we please dispense with the waterworks and get down to the business at hand?"

She drew a deep breath and leaned in close to him across the table, invading his space, threatening him. When she spoke her voice was low and shook with intensity.

"I want you to know, Malfoy , that if it were just my own life at stake here, and not my brother's, I'd let you hang and I wouldn't lose an hour's sleep over it. Your miserable life means nothing to me. Nothing! I'm marrying you for Bill's sake and _only_ for Bill's sake, do you understand me?" Her eyes flashed furious sparks at him as she spoke, and two spots of brilliant red had appeared in her otherwise pallid cheeks.

He made a motion as if swatting at an irksome fly. "Yes, yes Weasley," he drawled, affecting an indifference he did not feel. "Of course! This is no great love affair; no one thinks anything different. Only, can we please get the details sorted out? I'm rather keen to get home."

Her eyes widened, then narrowed again. She regarded him suspiciously, while he returned her scrutiny with a bland smile. Finally, she sat back and pulled a piece of parchment from the pocket of her robes. She slapped it onto the tabletop. "Fine. But before I agree to anything, I have a list of important points I want to be very clear on."

He sat back and stretched out his legs, lacing his fingers together behind his head. "Right. Carry on."

"First," she held up one finger and consulted her list. "The Curse Standard says we have to live together – and I quote – 'as man and wife, a year and a day.' It says nothing about sleeping together. I looked into it, and was told – on good authority – that 'as man and wife' only means that we have to live in the same house. So Point Number One is," she consulted the parchment, "No sex. None."

He looked revolted. "Good god Weasley, I never even thought of such a thing!"

Her nostrils flared, and her eyes narrowed. "Good. Just so we understand each other. Point Number Two follows on that: I get my own bedroom."

"Yes, _naturally_ you'll have your own bedroom," he said with exaggerated patience. "I'm certainly not sharing _mine_ with you."

"Point Number Three." He thought she almost expanded, like an indignant hen ruffling her feathers. "I'm not changing my name."

He exploded at her then, sitting straight up in his seat. "What the devil do I care what you do with your name, Weasley? Call yourself Smythe , Jones or – or Potter for all it matters to me! I thought you said your list was _important_. You're wasting my time!"

"Point – Number – Four," with each word, she jabbed the parchment with her finger, and spoke through gritted teeth. "I'm going to be living – _where_?"

"Ah _now_ we're getting somewhere!" he said triumphantly. He lounged back and laced his fingers behind his head again. "I have a home in the Highlands of Scotland. The Cairngorms. We'll live there." He smirked. "In separate bedrooms, of course."

She seemed surprised to hear this. "Not at Malfoy Mansion?"

Draco felt the creeping bitterness that always accompanied the name of his family home, but he was careful to inject just the right amount of boredom into his voice. "No Weasley, I sold Malfoy Mansion after the war, haven't lived there for years. My home is at Four Winds now."

"Four Winds," she said experimentally. "There's an Apparition Port nearby, I hope. I'll need to get to work every day."

"There is an Apparition Port built into the house."

"Right in the house? That's unusual." She looked as though she didn't believe him.

"Well, the estate is rather remote, you see. I believe the next closest Port is five miles to the south, which can be very inconvenient during the winter." He wanted to add that she would be more than welcome to walk to it every day, if she wanted, _especially_ during the winter, but he felt it would sound churlish.

"Oh." She lapsed into silence and toyed with her wine glass. Now that she had finished her list of demands, the fight seemed to be ebbing out of her.

He watched her. Though the lighting was dim he could see the dusting of freckles across her cheeks. She also appeared to have an unfortunate bit of sunburn on her nose, which was beginning to peel. The effect was wholly inelegant and provincial. He reflected that it was a good thing he didn't go out into society more often. It was going to be hard enough to explain her to the few people he did see. Perhaps he would be able to pretend she was a distant cousin, visiting him for... for a whole year...

She spoke again, in an odd, strangled tone. "So when... how soon should we..." She seemed unable to complete the sentence.

He had no desire to say it out loud either. "How soon would suit you?" he asked instead.

"The sooner the better, I suppose. Sooner begun is sooner done."

"Agreed." He didn't want to give her time to back out of it. He watched her covertly, while he pretended to stare into his beer. He let a length of silence pass, so it wouldn't sound as though it mattered _too_ much to him. "When, then?"

"Day after tomorrow? Sunday? I don't want my mother to have time to make a big hoo-ha out of it."

"Fine," he said, trying not to let his relief show in his voice. "Have your things ready to go by tomorrow night and I'll arrange to have them sent on ahead to Four Winds."

She nodded dully, not even questioning that he knew where she lived, or that he could manage to transport all her belongings to his home.

"I'll take care of the rings," he continued. "You just meet me at the circle. You can get there all right?"

She nodded again.

"What time suits you?"

"Whenever."

"Four o'clock then." He saw that she had begun to cry again, silently and in earnest, her tears spilling over and running down her cheeks.

"Weasley!" he said sharply, afraid she was about to change her mind. "This is not the end of the world."

When she did not reply, he reached out and touched her chin, tipping her face roughly so she had to look at him.

"It is a year of our lives, do you hear me? A year. We can do anything for a year." He thought she looked utterly defeated.

"We can do anything for a year," she echoed hollowly. "Well, I guess we'll just see about that, won't we?"


	4. Chapter 04

_**A/N**: Thanks, as always, to the brilliant **Gabriele**, who does all the formatting of this story for me._

**Chapter 4**

They stood before the Druid in the middle of the sacred circle.

Draco had hardly slept the night before, wondering if she would show, if she would go through with the marriage in the end. By turns, he convinced himself that of course she would, she would do whatever it took to safeguard her eldest brother's life. Then, he would suddenly remember how miserably he'd treated her and her friends at school all those years ago, and he'd experience a sudden hitch in his confidence...

But she was here now, and wearing a soft, blue robe that fitted to her curves nicely and revealed that she wasn't, after all, shaped like her mother. Her hair fell in gold-red ringlets around her shoulders and she carried a single white calla lily. He was relieved to see that she had taken some trouble with her appearance and that she could summon at least a modicum of good taste when the situation warranted it. Beyond the circle, her parents hovered, needing to be comforted, adding the weight of their anxiety to everything else she had to think about right now. Draco despised their selfishness, and ignored them.

The Druid handed him the ring. She did not offer him her hand, so Draco reached out and took it. Her fingertips were icy cold, and he could actually feel them trembling in his. He held the ring over the tip of her fourth finger. She did not look at him, but gazed steadfastly at the silver circlet in his fingers.

"You are Earth," he recited automatically. Nothing. He moved the ring to the tip of her middle finger. "Wind," he said.

Every person was born bound to one of the four Elements, but these days, most people didn't bother to search out their Elemental roots. It was considered an outmoded magic, and the trend now was to look to tarot and Divination: to look to the future to discover one's destiny, instead of the past. One of the few ways to discover one's Element was like this, in the nearly obsolete Ceremony of the Rings. It was said that the Rings could tell a man more about himself than any Seer ever could, and the Rings never lied. Since his parents had told him of the Curse when he was nine years old, Draco had known he would be married in this way. He had been mildly curious about his Elemental Identity; today, he would find out what it was. Not that it would make any difference in his life. He was what he was. Knowing it wouldn't change anything. He moved the ring to Ginny's first finger.

"Water." The ring did nothing. She had small hands, cool hands, and the slim fingers were tipped with tidy, oval, unpainted nails.

He moved the ring over the tip of her thumb. "Fire." The ring pulled itself from his fingers and settled itself around the base of Ginny's thumb, adjusting itself to the size of her finger. For one moment, it flashed with an intense, white glow before subsiding to its normal dull silver.

Draco noted this with interest. So... her ring was still white. Potter, apparently, hadn't gone all that far with her then, back in the days when they'd been an item. He felt a strange rush of satisfaction at this. This woman was _his_ wife now – or she would be, in another minute – and Potter hadn't had her yet. Not in _that_ way. Not, he told himself with a small shudder, that _he_ wanted her. He only wondered, with some amusement, whom she'd been saving herself for. He made himself dismiss the thought. It mattered nothing to him. It was probably still Potter. Well, a year and a day from now he'd be welcome to her, and her ring – he could guarantee it – would still be white for him. But they would both always know that _he_, Draco, had married her first.

Ginny took his ring from the Druid and reached for his right hand. She held the ring over his fourth finger. Draco watched, curious. Her fingers still shook but her voice, when she spoke, did not.

"You are Earth." She waited a fraction of a second, then moved the ring to his third finger.

"Wind." The ring pulled itself from Ginny's grasp and constricted around his middle finger, glowing a dull blue for just a moment. He was Wind then. He made a mental note to look that one up and see what it meant.

The Druid turned to a flat rock beside him, where four chalices stood waiting. He selected a small, gold one and handed it to Ginny. A larger, silver one, he handed to Draco. He left the crystal chalice and the wooden one where they stood, and turned to face them again.

"Drink," he intoned. "Take into yourselves each the essence of the other, and mingle body, soul and spirit."

He made a motion, and Draco lifted the Wind Chalice to Ginny. She drank from it, and her eyes flared wide with sudden surprise. As though someone had struck her, she staggered backward a step, and might have fallen if the Druid had not steadied her.

When she had recovered herself, the Druid motioned toward her, and she lifted the Fire Chalice to Draco's mouth. It was sweet wine, and as he swallowed it, Draco felt a flash of something white hot flare through him, from his mouth to his fingertips. The force of it took his breath away: the element of Fire.

"You may kiss your bride," the Druid was saying.

Draco saw the alarm etched on Ginny's pale, freckled face.

He let his eyes rake insolently over her slender body, before turning deliberately away. "I think we'll give it a miss."

The Druid was clearly puzzled, but he recovered himself and went on. "I declare that this day you are bound together by invisible cords in the visible union of marriage. May you live together in peace and prosperity, and may friendship and love abound to you both through the comfort of one another." He bowed respectfully and backed away from them.

Outside the circle, Molly and Arthur Weasley hesitated a moment, then came forward. Draco stepped back to the edge of the ring and crossed his arms, waiting for them to say their good-byes. Molly embraced her daughter, crushing the calla lily between them and Draco noticed that Ginny stood stiffly while her mother shook with sobs and her tears soaked the shoulder of the blue wedding robes. When she pulled away, she tried to cup Ginny's face in her hands, but Ginny turned away from her.

"Don't Mum. There's no need; it's not forever." Her face was pallid, but stony and Draco felt a flash of something like approval. She was doing what she had to do, and meeting it head-on without making room for sloppy sentiment or self-pity.

Arthur, too, hugged and kissed his daughter, though more quietly, and turned to give Draco a hard stare. Draco met his gaze without flinching, and when at last, Arthur nodded gravely at him, Draco nodded back. Arthur turned, and taking his wife's elbow, made his way to the Muggle car park where the Apparition Port was.

He watched his new wife follow her parents with her eyes as they walked away, and when they were out of sight, he came over to her again. They stood alone in the circle, not touching.

"What just happened?" she asked him.

"I think we were just married."

"Tuh!" She looked up at him and rolled her eyes. "I meant that... that wind thing that blew through me."

"Well, a bit of our elements are supposed to go into each other, aren't they? I imagine that's what it was."

"Oh. So did you... what did it feel like, to you?" She flushed and looked away, as though the question embarrassed her.

It had felt like... like a forge. Like the kind of intense, frightening heat a silversmith used to melt down metal, and to purify it before molding it into an entirely different shape. But he couldn't very well say that to her, so he only told her brusquely, "It felt like fire, of course."

"The wine was so bitter." She touched her lips and shuddered, and Draco looked sharply at her. The wine he had drunk from her chalice had been sweet. But she was asking, "So, what do we do now?"

"Well," he adopted the lazy drawl that had always kept him so safe, so removed when he was uncomfortable, "our first order of business is to get you some new robes."

Immediately, she bristled. "I may not have as much money as you, Malfoy, but I'm not putting up with any of your poverty jokes. My robes are perfectly good enough –"

He interrupted her. "I'm only saying, _Weasley_, – if you'll shut it long enough for me to finish a thought – that the robes you have aren't going to be nearly warm enough for where you're going to be living. The Highlands," he elaborated, at her perplexed look. "Remember? It's a good deal colder there than it is in London." Ginny still looked wary.

"I have an excellent tailor in Edinburgh," he went on. "I'm only suggesting we stop there, before we go to Four Winds, and get you outfitted properly. Won't do either of us any good to have you freezing to death before the year is out."

"It's nearly five o'clock. Won't his shop be closing soon?"

"He's expecting us." He hoped she was not going to be tiresome and argue with every little thing he said.

Reluctantly, she said, "I suppose it makes sense."

He didn't bother with more than a cursory nod. After all, he had never expected anything but her absolute acquiescence. "Let's go." Silently, she followed him the short distance to the Apparition Port in the Muggle car park. Her parents had long gone.

"Let's get on with it, shall we?" He picked up her hand. She tried to jerk it away.

"Don't flatter yourself that I'm taking liberties with you, Weasley," he said coolly. "It's just that you don't know where we're going."

She stopped tugging. "Oh."

He pulled out his wand and gave it a twist. "Right. We're off, then. Princes and Edward, Edinburgh."

He closed his eyes and felt the momentary, weightless sensation that was Apparition, then opened them and found that they were standing in the plain, square Apparition Port on the corner of Princes and Edward Streets, in Edinburgh.

"This way," he said, dropping her hand.

He led her through a side street or two until they came to a doorway with a plain wooden board nailed to it. On the board were burned the words, 'No Trespassing'. Draco tapped the sign once with his wand and 'No Trespassing' was replaced with the words 'Natty Toggs; Designs for Discriminating Wizards' in an ornate, gold script.

An extremely tall, thin man spied them as they stepped into the shop.

"Malfoy!" he cried, seizing Draco's hand and pumping it with great energy. "What a treat to see you here! First rate!" The man turned, beaming, to Ginny, his curly hair, severely in need of a cut, bobbing around his large spectacles.

"And who is this lovely? No wait, don't tell me – she's a cousin! No? Not a sister, because you don't have a sister... A business partner then?"

Draco shook his head, the ghost of a wry smile playing about his lips. "This is my new wife, Natty. Meet Ms Ginny Weasley."

"It never is!" Natty cried. "You've gone and taken the plunge then, eh? Well she's a singular beauty, she is. Well done, Malfoy!" He swung a lethal-looking pair of shears in a wild swoop as he made a ridiculously low bow. Then he seized Ginny's hand and began to kiss it, with little, smacking kisses, all the way up her arm. When he had passed her elbow, Draco cleared his throat.

"That will do, Toggs. Don't forget, she's _my_ wife." Ginny flushed at the insinuation.

"Then onto business, what?" Natty said cheerfully, dropping her hand. "You didn't come in here just to show off your new bride, I'll wager, though if you had it wouldn't have been a waste of either of our time. How may I be of service to you this evening?"

Draco looked at Ginny but she seemed to have lost her powers of speech.

"Ms Weasley is going to need some winter robes," he told the tailor.

"Excellent! Excellent!" Natty cried, as though his fondest wish in life was to supply Ms Weasley with warm clothing.

"Mrs Selvedge!" he shouted, and at once a plump, middle-aged witch appeared from the back room. She wore a tape measure round her neck and when she saw Draco her face lit up with delight.

"Mr Malfoy!" she exclaimed warmly. "You're too much a stranger around here! It's been ages since we've seen you; we were beginning to worry you'd taken your business somewhere else. And who is this?" She turned to his new wife and they went through the introductions again before the kindly woman took Ginny by the hand and pulled her into the back room to be measured.

"Now," said Natty, rubbing his hands together with the air of a salesman who knows his customer only buys the very best. "What kind of robes did you have in mind for her?"

An hour and a half later they left the shop, Ginny wearing one of the new, heavy, travelling robes over her blue wedding robe, and looking distinctly exhausted. Toggs had promised to send the rest of the clothes on to Four Winds tomorrow.

"Are you hungry?" he asked her, as they walked back to the Apparition Port.

She shook her head. "Just tired."

"Home then," he said. They stepped into the Port and he picked up her hand again. This time she did not try to pull away.

He pulled out his wand and gave it a twist. "Four Winds," he said, and closed his eyes.


	5. Chapter 05

_**A/N**: Thank you to those of you who have left such kind reviews, and much gratitude, as ever, to **Gabriele**, without whom this story would never be posted here._

**Chapter 5**

Ginny opened her eyes the next morning with dread heavy in the pit of her stomach.

When they arrived at Four Winds last night, Malfoy had delivered her into the hands of an ancient Peruvian house-elf named Lolly, and disappeared. Almost numb with nerves and exhaustion, Ginny had followed her up a broad staircase carpeted in white and then down a short corridor.

"Here is Mistress' bedroom," Lolly announced, stopping before one of the doors. "Master Draco's bedroom is there." She indicated the closed door across the corridor, her face a wide, vacuous mask that expertly betrayed no curiosity about the sleeping arrangements.

Ginny opened the door that had been earmarked as hers and felt a quick rush of purely feminine pleasure. Unconsciously, she had expected it to be furnished in Slytherin colours with a lot of dark wood and serpentine carvings. Instead, the furnishings were white, the walls a light shade of lavender. A wide window seat ran along one wall and through a doorway, she could see an _en suite_ bathroom. A fire burned in the fireplace and a writing desk in one corner held a large vase of fresh lilacs.

"Lilacs in September!" she exclaimed.

Lolly twisted her hands. "Is lilacs not right?" she asked tremulously. "Would Mistress rather something else?"

"Oh no, they're lovely!" Ginny reassured her. "The whole room is lovely. It's just right, I wouldn't change a thing."

Lolly's ugly face seemed to spasm with pure joy. "Master is having Lolly redecorate this room yesterday." She bowed and backed out of the room. "Lolly will tell Master that Mistress says 'lovely'." Ginny could hear her muttering gleefully to herself all the way down the corridor, "Lovely, LOVE- ly, love-LEE."

She had collapsed into bed and was asleep almost at once. She dreamed of a wedding under a lilac tree, and forgot the dream as soon as she awoke. Now, she lay watching the morning sun slanting across the floor. On one wall hung a painting of a meadow with a small stream running through it, and the gentle sounds of the water gurgling and splashing over the rocks should have been soothing. Instead, her stomach was knotting itself up inside.

She was going to have to get up soon, or she'd be late to work. But when she got up, she was also going to have to see _him_, maybe even eat breakfast with him and what in the world would they talk about? She had never thanked him for the robes he had bought last night; she supposed she could start there. It wasn't going to supply an entire meal's worth of conversation though, let alone an entire year's worth. She thought briefly of skipping breakfast, just so she could avoid him, but that was ridiculous of course. Even if her stomach had allowed it – and it was already beginning to make noises about the meal she had skipped last night – it was impossible that they would be able to avoid seeing and talking to each other for an entire year. No, best to jump in feet first.

She forced herself out of bed. Opening the door of the wardrobe, she found that all her things that had been sent up from London on Saturday had been unpacked and arranged for her. The familiar sight of them made her feel a little better and, pulling out a set of work robes, she went to the little _en suite_ to take a shower. She emerged from the bathroom half an hour later to find the bed made and the room tidied, presumably by Lolly. Draco's door was still closed this morning. Perhaps, she thought hopefully, he had already eaten.

The house was very quiet. The walls in this corridor were hung with a few portraits of witches and wizards from days gone by. A cursory glance told her that none of them was Lucius or Narcissa Malfoy, nor, in fact, did she recognise any of them. She was aware that they were ogling her and whispering to one another as she walked by them on her way down stairs.

"I can hear you," she snapped. The whispering stopped at once, and she lifted her chin high and swept down the corridor without another glance at any of them.

At the foot of the stairs, she paused. She was standing in the foyer through which she had entered last night, after stepping out of the Apparition Port. The room was wide and white, with gold-yellow trim and a ceiling that soared high overhead. The effect was bright and airy, not exactly what she had expected to feel in a Death-Eater's home, but a relief, nonetheless. To the right, an archway led onto a broad corridor, but she followed her nose through the left-hand door. She quickly found the dining room, where a sideboard held chafing dishes and platters with enough kippers, bacon, eggs and toast to feed several families.

Breathing a silent prayer of thanks that Draco wasn't there, she took a warm plate from one end of the sideboard and had just begun to fill it when Lolly appeared in the doorway, bearing a pitcher of tomato juice.

She caught sight of Ginny.

"Lovely morning, Mistress! Lovely!" Her face was wreathed in smiles.

"Good morning Lolly. Yes, it looks like it's going to be a nice one."

Lolly set the juice on the sideboard and gazed at Ginny with something akin to reverence. "Is Mistress needing anything? Lolly is happy to get it."

Ginny tried not to laugh at the little house-elf's evident infatuation with her. It seemed her compliment on Lolly's decorating skills last night had procured her a new admirer. Well, it would be nice to have an ally in the house, she thought.

"No, this all looks delicious, thanks." She hesitated and then, as Lolly made to leave the room, she asked, "Has – erm – Master Draco come down yet?"

Lolly shook her head, causing her bat-like ears to flop. "No Mistress. Master Draco is called away again last night. He is not at home."

Ginny raised her eyebrows. "Called away?"

Lolly saw at once that Ginny did not understand what she meant, and her eyes grew large. "Yes Mistress... Have some toast! A nice crumpet maybe?" She picked up the tongs and tried to push a piece of toast onto Ginny's plate, which already held two pieces.

"Do you know when he'll be back, Lolly?"

"No, Mistress. He goes away, sometimes for a day, sometimes for a week. When he comes home, he comes home." She lifted the lid on a chafing dish. "Bacon?" she said loudly.

"But where did he go?" Ginny was bewildered; clearly the house-elf did not want to talk about Draco's mysterious whereabouts.

Lolly dropped the lid with a clatter and twisted her hands together. "Forgive Lolly, but it is not for her to tell Master's secrets. Even to Mistress." She stared at the ground, cringing miserably.

Ginny took pity on her. "That's all right, Lolly. You're a good house-elf, to keep your master's secrets. I understand."

After, with evident relief, Lolly had made her escape to the kitchen, Ginny sat at the table alone, pushing her food around her plate, a sick feeling rising into her throat. She didn't need Lolly to tell her where he was, the foul git. He had been a Death Eater once. Now, he was "called away". That could only mean one thing: everyone knew Voldemort had been defeated in the last war, confirmed dead this time, but that didn't mean there weren't others who were eager to rise up and take his place. Apparently, there were still Death Eaters alive and well and at work somewhere, and her _husband_ – she shuddered at the word – was with them at this very moment.

She would watch the newspapers carefully from now on. And husband or no, if she read about even a hint of Death Eater activity, she was going to report it to her father. He would know what to do.

Her outlook improved dramatically, later in the day. Jayne, one of the Junior Secretaries from the Department of Education in the office next door, was getting married and leaving soon, so the department had got up a sending-off party for her in the afternoon. The party was in full swing by the time the Aurors came over from their office, and unconsciously, Ginny found herself searching the chattering throng for a sign of Ted.

Ted was Senior Secretary in the Department of Education, at the Ministry. He had meltingly good looks; deep, brown eyes and dark, curling hair, and Ginny had taken one look at him, two years ago, and fallen headlong into a crush that nearly rivaled the one she had cherished for Harry, back in her school days. Not, she was forced to admit, that Ted had ever given _her_ a second glance, or indeed, ever noticed her in the first place. A girl could dream, though.

Myra, who had come in with her, elbowed her sharply in the ribs. "There he is!"

"Ow!" Ginny elbowed her friend back. "Where? I don't... Oh! There by the punch bowl."

Myra grinned wolfishly at her. "I'm feeling very thirsty, just now."

Ginny grinned back. "Me too." They elbowed their way through the crush to the table at the far side of the room, and helped themselves to drinks.

Myra glanced covertly around. "Back up," she hissed to Ginny.

"What?"

"I said back up. Just take a few steps backward... no! Don't look, just step back."

Ginny laughed at her, but obeyed, taking a cautious step backward, afraid she was going to knock someone over.

"Another one. One more."

Ginny felt herself collide with someone, and her punch slopped out of the cup and down the front of her. She whirled around. "Oh! Sorry..." The words died in her throat. It was Ted she had bumped into, which, she realised at once, was exactly what Myra had intended.

"Hiya, Ted," said Myra cheerily. "Have you met my friend Ginny?"

Ted looked at her. He wasn't much taller than she, but had a solid, muscular build that made him seem big. He smiled, and Ginny felt her knees go funny.

"Hello, Ted. Pleased to meet you." She held out her hand and felt it clasped in a warm grasp that seemed to shoot little currents of something electrical up her arm.

"Ginny and I are old chums. We went to school together." Myra was chattering merrily away. "Of course, we didn't see much of each other once she made the House Quidditch team and started hanging about with Harry Potter."

Ginny shot her a look that clearly said _shut up!_ But she seemed to have underestimated her friend. Ted looked at her keenly.

"Did you really play Quidditch?"

"Well, only at school. I hardly ever play anymore, short of tossing the Quaffle around in the backyard with my brothers now and then, if they're a player short."

"What's your position?"

"Chaser, mainly. I did about half a season as Seeker once, when ours was out of commission."

"And do you really know Harry Potter?"

"Oh does she _ever_!" Myra rolled her eyes expressively. "They go back a _long_ way." She winked at Ted and leaned in close, and said in a loud whisper. "They're old sweethearts."

Ginny felt her face flame, and thought she would gladly do Myra an injury right now, if they weren't in a public place. But she glanced at Ted, and found that he was smiling at her, and he appeared to be intrigued.

"Really?" he said. "You and Harry Potter?"

"Yes," Ginny managed. "But that was a very long time ago. Water under the bridge, you might say."

"Do you keep in touch with him? What's he doing, these days? He sort of fell from the front page when the war ended."

"Yes," she said. "Well, that was on purpose. He works for Auror Special Forces now, out of Belgium. I see him now and then; he and my brother are best mates."

Ted's eyebrows went up. "But no... um..."

"No, we're not still involved, if that's what you're asking. Still friends, but only that."

"And do you still follow Quidditch?"

"Oh, yes! I'm a Cannons fan, mainly. I go to the odd match, when I can though, no matter who's playing."

Someone tugged at Ted's sleeve. "Ted, come over here. Pendleton wants a word with you."

A look of regret crossed his face. "It seems I'm being called away," he said. "But... you and I should get together sometime, and talk Quidditch."

Ginny felt as though all her breath had deserted her. "Yes, all right," she managed. "I'd like that."

"Great!" He beamed at her. "I'll come around to your office and say 'hi' then, soon." He was pulled into the crowd, and was gone.

Ginny slumped against the refreshment table, and looked weakly at Myra.

"Go on. Say it," her friend told her.

"Say what?"

"You know I'm brilliant. Go on, tell me."

Ginny smiled broadly, then leaned forward and kissed Myra on the cheek. "You are brilliant."

"He wants to see you again."

"I know!"

"He practically asked you out!"

"He did, didn't he?"

"Come on, let's go kiss the bride-to-be and get out of here."

"Where are we going?"

"We're going to get you a new haircut before work tomorrow."


	6. Chapter 06

_**A/N**: Thanks, as ever, to **Gabriele**, the formatting monkey, who makes this story possible. And thanks to everyone who has reviewed, for your overwhelming enthusiasm. Hey – if you're reading, and you like it, why not leave a review and let me know?_

**Chapter 6**

Draco opened his eyes and sighed. His own Apparition Port. He was home. He rubbed a hand across his burning eyes. How long had it been since he'd slept, really _slept_? He'd lost count. But then, he often lost count of his sleepless nights. It was an occupational hazard.

He needed something to eat, and a shower, and bed. And Merlin help anyone if he was called out again before he'd had at least twelve good hours of sleep. He headed for the dining room, but a voice, issuing from the sitting room, halted him in his tracks.

"Come on, I'm not going to hurt you! That's a good boy. Come to Mummy."

His eyes darted right, then left. It was _Weasley_, of course. He hadn't, for one moment, forgotten she was living here now. But whom the devil was she talking to? _Come to Mummy_. _That's a good boy_. A child? She had a – oh no! Panicked visions rose up, of a small child living under his roof. Noise. Messes. Strained food and nappies and things like that. But how could that be? She couldn't have a child, could she? Her ring was still white...

He hurried to the next doorway, and peering in, almost dropped the travelling bag he was carrying.

She stood on an overstuffed chair, with her back to him. One foot was on the arm of the chair, the other knee balanced on the chair back. It was a precarious position at best. She was reaching toward the tops of the draperies, toward a small bundle of fur crouched in the corner of them. A cat.

"Come to Mummy," she was saying, in a false, bright tone.

But it was not the cat that arrested his attention. She was wearing jeans. His _wife_, he thought, with a satisfied leer, was wearing jeans. And they were just the merest bit too tight for her. He had never seen her in jeans before; she filled them out very nicely. Oh no, she was not built _at all_ like her mother. He grinned, his fatigue forgotten for a moment, and leaned against the doorjamb to watch.

She paused to flick her hair impatiently over one shoulder, and contemplate the cat. He watched her gingerly rebalance herself and reach up again, higher. Her shirt rode up in the back when she did that, giving him a glimpse of pale, freckled skin where her hips curved into her waist. Well. _That_ was interesting. He'd always been one to appreciate a well-built woman, and though it was only Weasley, there was nothing stopping him enjoying the show. He folded his arms and settled in to watch.

She shifted her position, and the chair teetered. Then, as though in slow motion, it tipped backward, carrying her with it. She gave a strangled yelp, and instinctively, he jumped forward, grabbing her around the waist and yanking her back before she fell.

She uttered a terrified little scream and they fell backward, together, onto the floor.

"_Oof_." She landed on top of him, catching him in the stomach with her elbow. Her hair was in his face, caught against the two days' growth of beard, clinging to him like a coppery spider's web. He shook his head to free himself of it, brushing it away from his clothes, pulling it out of his mouth. There was so much of it; he had not thought, before, about how long her hair was, and knowing that he was covered with it, he felt a strange shock that was almost like the feeling of being discovered naked.

She twisted around and when she saw who it was that had hold of her, she swore. "You frightened me half to death! Let _go_ of me!" He was still holding her, the skin of her waist warm and soft under his hands. He had not expected her to feel so... human. She wrenched free of his grasp and came up sitting beside him, gasping, and pulling down the hem of her shirt. It was a self-conscious gesture, and it made him feel oddly triumphant.

"Oh Merlin, Malfoy! You scared me! How long were you there?"

"Just a moment. What the devil were you doing?" He looked up at the cat atop the draperies. Two yellow eyes blinked down at him impassively. "What is that – that _thing_ doing on top of my curtains?"

"It's not a '_thing_', it's a kneazle," she told him haughtily. "I just got him today." She glanced up at it, and her haughtiness seemed to evaporate. "He made for the top the minute I put him down this afternoon, and he's been there ever since. I suppose I could just Summon him, but he'd be terrified, the poor thing, and he'd hate me forever after. He's frightened enough, being in a strange house. I don't know what else to do." She turned and clutched at his arm. He jerked at the contact, and stiffened. People didn't just go around... touching him without any warning, like that.

She didn't seem to notice. "Can you get him down for me?"

Draco looked at her, wondering why she should be so overwrought about such an inconsequential matter. She looked troubled. Compassionate. Irritated. He didn't understand the problem. It was only a cat – kneazle, he corrected himself. _He_ would have Vanished the damn thing and had done with it altogether. He blew out a breath. He was exhausted. He'd had a hard week and he wanted dinner. A shower. Bed.

But then, he looked down at the hand on his arm. It was her right hand, with the silver ring on her thumb. There was an unfamiliar, softness stirring in him, at the thought that she needed him to do something for her, and was asking without sarcasm or malice: just a simple request. And touching his arm.

"Let me try," he found himself saying. "I'm quite a bit taller than you." He squinted up at the irksome creature. "I think I can reach him."

With an irritated – and slightly exaggerated – sigh, he righted the armchair and climbed onto it. Sure enough, he only had to stand on the seat cushion to reach the wretched animal. He plucked it from the curtain-top and handed it back to Ginny before he stepped down from the chair.

It was little more than a scrap of gray fur. She held it close to her chest and stroked it, burying her cheek in its fur, crooning meaningless words, and the intimacy of it was somehow embarrassing to Draco. He turned away.

"If that's all, I'm going to find some dinner," he muttered.

"Right," she said, and her voice trembled just a little. "I'll just nip this one up to my room then, shall I?" And she was gone.

She did not reappear that evening, and Draco went to bed after he ate, and slept like the dead.

When Ginny entered the dining room the next morning she found Draco already eating breakfast, the day's issue of the _Daily Prophet_ folded open beside his plate. When he saw her, he pushed his chair back and stood up. She stifled her impulse to giggle. It was such an... old-fashioned thing to do, a gesture that didn't belong to the world she was used to. She had grown up with six brothers and a father, and never once had a man stood up when she entered the dining room. She remembered that Draco had done it the other night as well, when she'd joined him at his table in The Blue Onion.

"Good morning," she said awkwardly.

"Morning." He nodded briefly, before sitting back down and returning his attention to the newspaper.

She filled a plate at the buffet and sat down at the table across from him. She wished she had thought to bring something with her to read, so she wouldn't feel all hands and fingers, her fork scraping the plate so loudly, sure he could hear her chewing in the silence.

She studied him while she tried to eat her mushrooms and tomatoes quietly, and he read the paper. He was rather taller and broader in the shoulders than she remembered him at Hogwarts, while she had hardly grown since her fifth year. His hair was still very light, and he wore it long, and pulled back with a leather thong. She supposed that, pressed for an objective opinion, she would have to call him good-looking, though she had never fancied blond hair, and his chin was entirely too aggressive for her liking. Then too, she knew him to be an arrogant bastard, so she couldn't possibly approve of the way he looked. The difference in their sizes might have made him seem threatening to someone else, but she straightened her shoulders. _She_ was not going to be intimidated by anyone just because he was bigger than she. Six brothers gave a girl confidence that way.

He finished the article he was reading and pushed the paper aside, turning his full attention to her.

"Did you sleep well?" His voice was carefully modulated, his face bland and composed, the perfect blend of courtesy and polite distance. Good breeding in action.

It suddenly irked her. People were supposed to _visit_ at the table. To chat and tease and bicker and gossip and catch up with one another. So what if they didn't know each other, or like each other or even respect each other? She was not going to be polite and formal with anyone she lived with. Not for a whole year.

"No," she said with spirit. "I had a wretched sleep. Ginger and Smoke kept me awake half the night with their yawling. I suppose they wanted their mum. Eventually I let them sleep with me, but then I was afraid I'd roll over and crush them, so I didn't dare move a muscle. I only really got to sleep about two hours ago, and then I had to get up for work. How about you? Did you sleep well?"

He blinked at her, clearly taken aback. Then, "Ginger and Smoke?"

"The kneazle kits."

"Two of them?"

"Well, yes. Brother and sister. You know." She gestured vaguely, but then she remembered that he was an only child, so she supposed he didn't know, really.

"Ah," he said, unenlightened.

"A witch at the Apparition Transfer Station had a box of them for sale," she elaborated, "and I was waiting to get through the line yesterday – you know it takes forever, at least an hour – and by the time it was my turn in the Port she had just these two left."

He was looking at her as though she were speaking some strange language he had never heard before.

"I couldn't just take one and leave the other, could I?"

He didn't answer, only scrutinized her more closely.

"They were _brother and sister_," she said, exasperated.

"So you brought them both home?"

"Well, yes. What else could I do?"

He did not answer, and silence reigned for several minutes, in which Ginny grew more and more uncomfortable and her fork seemed to scrape the plate more loudly with every bite.

When he did speak, it was to say something wholly unexpected. "I forgot you'll have to be passing through the Apparition Transfer Station every day, now that you live in Scotland."

She shrugged. Everyone performing International Apparition had to pass through a Ministry-regulated Apparition Transfer Station. It involved showing papers and waiting in long lines for Apparition Ports that had been meticulously timed to mesh with the schedules of Ports worldwide. These stations regulated intra-air traffic, in order to prevent people colliding mid-Apparition. Immigration and international trade were also regulated there. Traditionally, movement across the Scotland-England border had not required a stop at an ATS, but since the war, everyone had been more cautious about just who was allowed to enter the country and why and from where. Larger countries, like the United States and Russia even had ATSs between major cities.

Draco pushed back his chair. "Well," he said, a trifle awkwardly, "Have a – a nice day."

"You too," she said brightly, forking sausages into her mouth. She stuck her tongue out at his departing back.

She did not see him the rest of the week, but the next morning, propped against her breakfast plate, Ginny found a gold-embossed card bearing the seal of the Ministry of Magic. She picked it up and turned it over in her hands. It was an ATS Clearance Pass, signed by the Minister for Security himself. An ATS Pass: They were almost unheard-of; she knew of no one, personally, who had one. Where on earth had he got hold of it? She read the fine, copperplate writing on the back, then read it again, to be sure she understood correctly. The Pass gave her, at all times, security clearance to circumvent the entire ATS system.

Ginny ran her fingers over the thick, cream-coloured vellum, then clutched it convulsively to her chest, grinning broadly, one thought foremost in her mind. A security Pass meant she could lie in a whole hour later every morning.


	7. Chapter 07

_**A/N**: Thanks to all of you who have reviewed so enthusiastically. Remember, if you ask me a question in your review, you have to leave an e-mail address where I can answer you! And thanks, as always, to **Gabriele**, for all the formatting work he puts into this._

**Chapter 7**

The morning after the episode in the sitting room, Draco lurked in his bedroom until he was sure Ginny had left for work, and then rang for Lolly.

"Lolly," he said, when the house-elf had appeared and made her curtsey. "Has Ms Weasley gone yet?"

At the mention of her mistress' name, Lolly fairly shone. "Yes, Master. Mistress is leaving for her work at the Ministry fifteen minutes ago." She didn't, Draco thought irritably, have to look so damn _worshipful_ about it.

"Good. Pack me a bag; I'm going away for a few days."

Lolly cast a discreet, puzzled glance at the empty fireplace. "Master –" she began timidly, "Master is not called away again?"

"No," he said brusquely. "Not this time. I'm just... getting away for a while. You can tell your mistress I'm working, though."

"Working, sir?" Lolly's eyes were wide and innocent, but she hadn't been his house-elf since childhood for nothing, and Draco fancied he saw something of a shrewd gleam in them. He suddenly wished he had a servant who didn't know him _quite_ so well.

"Yes, _working_, dammit! Quit asking so many questions and pack my bag. I wish to leave at once." He stalked into the bathroom and slammed the door behind him. The solitary, mindless task of showering helped him organise his thoughts a little, and the hot water worked to loosen up his shoulder muscles.

It was ludicrous to think he had to skulk around and avoid someone in his own house. If anyone were uncomfortable here, it ought to be Weasley. _She_ was the intruder. _She_ had been uprooted from her home and family, and transplanted into the middle of Scotland, where she didn't know a soul. Apparently, though, she'd made herself _very_ comfortable. Comfortable enough, at any rate, to be climbing all about his furniture. Comfortable enough to be bringing stray creatures home, as though the place were a bloody menagerie.

He thought about the way she'd looked last night, when she'd held the kneazle kit to her cheek and buried her face in its fur, how she'd closed her eyes and cooed nonsense to it. He closed his own eyes against a palpable surge of uneasiness he couldn't name. He leaned his forehead against the cold tile of the shower wall, and let the hot water beat down on his back. Something about the uncomfortable sensation roiling through him took him back in time. He'd last felt it... when? He let his mind drift.

He was eleven years old; the Sorting feast was over, and he had just stepped into his dormitory in Slytherin House, for the very first time. Crabbe and Goyle had climbed into their green-hung beds and were snoring almost immediately, but he... he had lain awake a long time that night, with this very same feeling in the pit of his stomach...

His eyes flew open in horror. _Homesickness_. That was what he'd felt, his very first night at Hogwarts. And it was what he'd felt last night, when he'd watched Weasley make such a ridiculous fuss over that ridiculous kitten. Something about the sight had recalled him to the possibility of things he had not thought about before, had never wanted, had never considered that he might be missing.

He shut off the water and stepped out, reaching for a towel.

It wasn't decent, he thought, that she should parade around the house – _his home_ – wearing off-the-rack clothing that didn't fit her properly: tight jeans and shirts that rode up and showed her skin. He should be able to walk into his own sitting room without having to look at that. It disrupted his concentration entirely too much. His work was dangerous – his _life_ was dangerous, and he could not afford to be distracted that way. More to the point, he could not afford to be distracted by _her_. Not when she was who she was, and a year from now would be out of his life for good.

He dressed with hardly a thought for what he was wearing, and collecting the travelling bag that Lolly had packed for him, stalked down to the Apparition Port. He owned a smallish home called Journey's End, on the Isle of Crete, which he used once or twice a year for entertaining business clients, but it was empty just now. He would have privacy there, and peace and quiet. He would not have to come home from a hard day's work and find animals sitting on his draperies, and freckled witches eating breakfast at his table. He Apparated over.

The problem, he thought later that day, as he swam laps in the heated pool at Journey's End, was that Weasley had no breeding, and no real beauty to speak of. It was a travesty, really, that she should go around dressed that way, flinging her long, brilliant hair into his face, trying so... _transparently_ to entice him. She was trying to provoke him.

Well, she would be disappointed. He, Draco Malfoy, knew what a gorgeous woman was, and Ginny Weasley was _not it_. He'd had the very best before he'd married this... wench, and he'd still be having the best, long after she was gone. He would _not_ be distracted by her. Would _not_ give her another thought. She was nothing: plebeian and unsophisticated and plain. Worse, she was an old enemy, and Harry Potter's leftovers.

The hell of it was, he dreamed about her that night.

He would conquer this. More exercise was all he needed; he would wear out his body until his mind stopped reeling. He would not give himself _time_ to remember how warm and soft and _real_ she had felt under his palms. His second day at Journey's End, he swam more laps in the pool, and ran ten kilometres in the heat of the day. He buried himself in business and met with his account clerk. He paid a surprise visit to one of his vineyards, where he stormed and ranted, and fired three people. And that night, he dreamed about her again.

By the third day, he was afraid to sleep any more. His own body was betraying him, and he did not know which was worse, to see her, and wish he wouldn't or not to see her, and wish he could. He thought about it all day, and when evening came, he packed his bag for Scotland, and went home.

When he opened the door of the Port at Four Winds, he looked around cautiously, and listened. All was quiet. He headed for the stairs, intent on the sanctuary of his own bedroom and study. At the foot of the stairs, however, he hesitated. The library door was ajar, and lamplight spilled through the crack. _She was in there_. He would go directly to his room, of course. He had nothing to say to her. He put his foot on the bottom step, and looked back at the library. The grey kneazle kit wandered through the door, just then, and catching sight of Draco, came to sit at his feet.

He looked down at it. It had been right _up against_ her face... "What?" he snapped at the kit, stifling the urge to kick it. It blinked up at him, and twitched its tail. Draco closed his eyes against the thoughts warring in his mind. What did he care, after all, where she was, or what she was doing? But... he should just go in, and see her, and then he would know that this preoccupation he'd had with her for the last three days had been all a jumped-up distortion of perspective. One look at her would remind him that he could not stand her, that they still hated each other and that nothing had changed, _would_ ever change. "Oh hell," he muttered at last, and wrenched himself away from the staircase.

Ginny was reading in the library, when Draco opened the door. She had seen very little of her new husband in the three weeks she'd lived here. Often, he was away from home – she had a vague idea that he owned a vineyard in Italy that occupied most of his time – and when he was home, she usually went straight to her room after dinner, to avoid having to spend the evening with him. He had been gone three days this time.

She had eaten her evening meal alone, and not expecting him to return, had kicked off her shoes and curled up in a chair before the fire with a volume of Wordsworth and a glass of wine. She was idly stroking Ginger, the orange kneazle kit, in her lap.

She looked up from her book, startled, when he came in. "Oh," she said. "I didn't know you were home."

Draco crossed to the chair opposite hers and dropped into it, looking at the fire. "I finished up my work a bit earlier than I expected."

"Oh." She cast about for something to say, in the atmosphere that suddenly vibrated with tension. She didn't want to ask what kind of work he had been doing, because she was sure he would tell her to mind her own business, and she wasn't brave enough to risk it. Instead, falling back on a lifetime of watching her mother's example, she asked, "Have you had anything to eat?"

He looked up at her, surprised. "Yes. I ate before I came home."

"Good." She wanted to go back to reading her book, but she thought it might be rude. Her eyes caught her half-empty wine glass. "Do you want something to drink?" She was an idiot. Surely, if he'd wanted something to drink, he would have got it himself, before he'd sat down.

Again, he looked surprised. "Erm – yes. All right."

She stood, glad to have a task to occupy herself. "What do you drink?"

"Straight scotch." She knew he was watching her as she crossed to the little bar in the corner, found the scotch and a tumbler, and poured him a drink. She did not look at him as she handed it to him. It was probably no more than he expected, for a Weasley to be serving a Malfoy. She hoped he didn't think she was going to do it all the time. She had only been trying to find something to do with her hands.

"What are you reading?" he asked, as she sat down and picked up her book again.

"William Wordsworth." She showed him the cover. "He's a – a poet." She'd almost said 'a Muggle poet', but she was sure he would have scoffed at that.

"You like poetry, then?" he said, sipping his drink.

"Yes, don't you?"

He shrugged. "I haven't read much of it, so I couldn't say."

"Oh." Silence fell between them again, and he stared into the fire while she tried to read her book.

At last, draining the contents of his glass, he stood up. "I'm going flying," he said. "Do you want to come?"

Ginny was startled. Surely he didn't actually _want_ her to go flying with him. He was just being polite. But... Draco Malfoy, being polite? That was even more unlikely. He was up to something. She looked at him narrowly, but his expression was indifferent, almost... preoccupied. He certainly didn't look _dangerous_, right now. And the idea was oddly appealing. She hadn't been on a broom since she'd been living here, and she did miss it. She didn't necessarily want to spend more time in his company, but then, they wouldn't have to talk while they were up in the air.

"I don't have a broom," she told him.

He waved that away. "There are loads of them in the shed. Are you coming or not?"

_Well_, she thought, _die all, die merrily_. "Yes, all right." She stood up too, and followed him out of the library.

In the foyer, they donned their heavy cloaks, boots and gloves, then went out into the night. It was dark and starless, with a fitful, waxing moon making itself seen now and again through the clouds. A heavy dampness hung in the air.

"It'll rain tonight," he predicted as they made their way around the back of the house to one of the small outbuildings in the rear. "The password is 'Thursday'," he told her. "Just plain _Alohomora_ won't work; otherwise anyone could get in here. If you ever want to fly when I'm not here, just tack 'Thursday' onto the spell, and the door should open. _Alohomora Thursday_," he said, tapping the lock with his wand. It swung open with a 'click'.

"'Thursday?'" she asked. "Why 'Thursday'?"

He gave a self-deprecating shrug. "Not the most creative password, maybe, but I bought the house on a Thursday so it's something I can remember."

She followed him into the tiny shed, their breath hanging in white puffs before them. A lone broomstick occupied the holder on the left wall. She was unsurprised to note that it was a Stratosphere Unlimited, the latest – and most wildly expensive – in broomstick technology. Draco gestured to the right wall. The rack on that side was filled with brooms, every one of them superior to anything she had ever flown on before.

"Take your pick," he said.

She studied the brooms, choosing, at last, a Galaxy Twenty-One. It was small and light, with a handle of ash polished to a high sheen.

He nodded his approval. "I see you know your broomsticks." He took his Stratosphere from the holder, locking the door behind them as they stepped back out into the damp night. "Ever been in the Cairngorms before this?" he asked her.

She shook her head.

"Come on, then. I'll show you around." He mounted his broom and kicked off, and she followed suit. They flew straight up for about two hundred feet, before Draco levelled off. She stayed behind, in his slipstream, until he looked back over his shoulder and motioned impatiently. "Come up here," he called. She leaned forward and drew up alongside him. The compass on the Galaxy's handle showed them to be heading northeast.

As they flew, Ginny felt her tension begin to drop away from her. This was familiar territory: She'd always loved to be in the air, where she could see but not be seen, far away from the duties and disappointments of life on the ground. Below, stretching away in all directions in the intermittent moonlight, lay the vast, graceful sweeps of the Cairngorms. Already, their sides were dusted with snow. A narrow burn wound a silvery path along the valley floor, and they followed this for about five minutes before Draco caught her off guard by plunging into a sudden, steep dive. Startled, she followed him, leaning forward to match his speed in the nearly vertical drop. In front of her, he pulled his broom handle up and, flying flat out, swooped through the middle arch of a railroad bridge. Ginny hardly had time to do more than react. She pulled her own broom up, levelling out, and leaned forward until she was lying flat against the handle. With a speed she had never experienced on a broom before, she shot through the arch behind him, gasping as the stone wall of it flashed by in a grey blur only inches from her face.

She pulled up and came to a hover, looking back at the bridge. She was breathing hard and her heart was racing, but she felt exhilarated, and it was the first time she'd felt anything besides numb since the day she'd agreed to this marriage. She saw Draco in the distance, hovering, waiting for her. She turned her back on him and looped the bridge again, shooting through the middle of the three arches as fast as she could make the broom go. When she came out on the other side, she dove toward the glittering water below, pulling out of the dive and rolling in the air, just before she hit the surface. Without a pause, she shot straight up and looped the bridge again.

She did it over and over again, each time feeling a little of the emotional deadness drop away, feeling more like her old self with every plummet and roll until, fifteen minutes later, she pulled up beside Draco, who had been hovering on his broom and watching her the whole time. She was sweaty and breathless, and her face was numb with the cold. She looked at him defiantly, daring him to laugh at her.

But he only said, "Nice bit of flying. Feel better now?" And when she nodded mutely, he said, "Come on, I'm freezing my arse off. Let's go home."

She flew back to Four Winds beside him, feeling more optimistic than she had done in weeks. Draco unlocked the broom shed again and, taking the Galaxy from her, placed it in the left wall holder next to his own Stratosphere. They walked back to the house in silence and stripped off their cloaks in the foyer.

"Goodnight, Weasley," he told her perfunctorily, when he had taken off his boots. He started to go, but turned back. "You want to have a hot shower before bed," he said. "Won't do to have you getting pneumonia." And she thought there was a certain softness in his expression that hadn't been there before, but before she had time to be sure, he was gone. Only then did she remember she had never thanked him for the ATS Pass.

When Ginny got to work several days later, she found Ted sitting on the edge of her desk, waiting for her. She caught her breath, but forced herself to speak lightly, as though she frequently came into the office to find good-looking men waiting for her.

"Hullo... Ted, isn't it? I think we met at the office party the other week..." She injected just the right amount of puzzlement into her voice, and moved around the desk to put her purse in a drawer and hang her cloak in the cupboard. She turned to face him. "Had a nice weekend?"

"Yes, I did. I went to watch the Berwick Buccaneers' first pre-season match."

Ginny gave an admiring whistle. "I thought Bucs' tickets were supposed to be impossible to come by, after they won the Nationals for the third year running. Who'd they play?"

"Aberdeen. Have lunch with me today, and I'll tell you all about it."

Her pulse leapt, and she felt the colour flood her face, but she fought to keep her voice light. "Oh, I wouldn't say no to an offer like that. What time, then?"

"Can you get away at twelve?"

She pretended to consult her desk calendar. There was nothing scheduled at or near twelve o'clock. "Um... I'll be a bit pressed," she said. "Twelve-thirty?"

He smiled and stood up. "Twelve-thirty it is, then. Meet you here." He gave her a little wave, and was gone. Ginny sank into her chair, dazed, and stared at the place where he had been. She had a lunch date with Ted!

The morning dragged by while she ploughed her way through a mountain of paperwork, hardly conscious of what she wrote in her reports, and not caring in the least. She kept her office door open and glanced up sharply every time someone passed, hopeful for a glimpse of him before lunch.

At twelve o'clock, she dashed to the ladies', brushed her teeth and re-plaited her hair. She refreshed her makeup, put on some perfume and did a quick Pressing Charm on her robes. By twelve-twenty, she was back at her desk, thumbing demurely through a report and looking for all the world like she hadn't moved from that spot all morning.

He took her to a pub known for its lamb stew. Over lunch, he told her about the Berwick match, and they talked about the prospects for the Quidditch season ahead.

"...Fitch started out last season as a long shot, and ended up high scorer in the league and the number one draft pick this year." Ted shook his head in admiration. "I'll tell you, Ginny, if he doesn't take the Bucs all the way to the World Cup this year, I'll eat my own Quaffle."

"Yes, but he's a Chaser! That's all well and good, but what about Robbins? A team needs an excellent Seeker to make it all the way to the cup, and I wouldn't call Robbins excellent, not by any stretch of the imagination."

Ted shrugged this away. "He's not terrible, and he _is_ improving. He caught the Snitch this time. Besides, look at the World Cup of '94, Ireland versus Bulgaria. Bulgaria caught the Snitch, didn't they? But Ireland still won. And I'll tell you why –" He leaned forward, his warm, brown eyes sparkling, his face animated. "– Because they had excellent Chasers, that's why! The Chasers carried the day."

"But," Ginny challenged him, "in the Berwick-Aberdeen match, how long did Robbins take to catch the Snitch? If a Seeker mucks about too long, the Chasers tire out. Then, it doesn't matter how excellent they are. For every hour – after the first one – that a Chaser is in the air, his accuracy in shooting is reduced by five percent."

Ted grinned approvingly at her. "Well, I think we'll have to wait and see how old Robbins pans out in the end. I thought he played a decent game. It may come down to what the other teams have – or haven't – got this year."

He glanced at his watch. "We'd better be getting back to the office, or we'll be missed." He paid the cheque and held the door for her. As she brushed by him, he reached out and took her hand, smiling at her in a way that caused her heart to skip a beat or two, then race to catch up with itself.

They walked back to the office, hand-in-hand, chatting comfortably about Quidditch. When he left her at her office door, he leaned down and whispered, "Can we do it again, sometime?"

"That would be lovely."

"Great. I'll hold you to it." He walked off down the corridor, whistling jauntily, and Ginny watched him go. Then she shut herself in her office and floated through the afternoon, not accomplishing a single worthwhile thing, but happier than she remembered being in months. Maybe even in years.

She came home that night to find Lolly scurrying about the house in a state of nerves she had never seen the creature in before.

"What is it, Lolly?" she asked. Concern sidetracked her from the happiness that had been humming through her all afternoon.

"Master Draco," cried Lolly. "Master Draco is not well!"

"Is it anything serious?"

Lolly wrung her wrinkled little hands. "Lolly does not know, Mistress. Master Draco is _never_ sick, but this evening, he is not getting out of bed for dinner, and is saying he is ill." She looked at Ginny with wide eyes. "Lolly has been boiling water, and trying to give him Pepper-Up potion, and mustard plasters, but Master Draco only sends her away, every time." Her bulging eyes began to water. "What would Mistress have Lolly do?"

Ginny was irritated. She could not have cared less, at the moment, about Draco's petty health concerns. She blew out a breath. No doubt it would be the decent thing to do, to at least check on him.

"It's probably just a cold, or something, Lolly. I'll go look in on him and talk to you after that." She headed up the stairs. At Draco's doorway, she hesitated. She had never been in there before. Most likely, he would just throw her out if she knocked.

She knocked anyway. There was no answer. Cautiously, she put her hand on the polished oak door, and pushed it open. "Draco?"

The room was dim, the curtains pulled. It was a big room, bigger than hers, with dark, plush carpeting and a massive stone fireplace at one end. The bed was a high, old-fashioned affair, with curtains around it. Just now, however, the curtains were open, and she could see him, a shadowy form huddled under the covers. Hesitantly, she approached the bed.

"Draco?"

"What?" came the muffled voice.

"Lolly says you aren't feeling well."

"It's just a nasty virus."

"Well, Lolly's rather concerned. Do you think you should see someone? I could call a Healer in –"

"I just need to be let alone," he said, from under the covers. "I'll be all right in the morning."

She rolled her eyes. "Well, if you're sure..."

"I'm sure. Go away."

"If I can do anything –"

"You can shut the door on your way out," he snapped.

"All right. Good night." She stuck her tongue out at the heap of blankets, then chided herself silently. She was really going to have to stop responding in such a childish way to him. It didn't solve anything.

She closed the door firmly as she left, and by the time she reached the dining room had all but forgotten about him, dwelling instead, on the far pleasanter image of Ted holding her hand as they walked back to work together after their lunch date.


	8. Chapter 08

_**AN**: Thanks to **Gabriele**, the formatting-monkey-genius behind all of this, and to all you who have reviewed so far. Just... wow._

**Chapter 8**

"So, d'you think he's real, this Quicksilver character?" Merrilee LeBlanc squinted at the magazine article on the desk in front of her.

"Merrilee, if he were real, don't you think we'd all _know it_ by now?" Ginny blew out an exasperated breath. "If he were real, he'd be _an Auror_, wouldn't he?"

It had been a slow morning – indeed, a slow week – at Headquarters, and the Ministry Aurors had been reduced to lounging around the office, throwing balls of scrap paper into waste bins and leafing through back issues of _Witch Weekly_.

"Well, maybe," answered the older woman uncertainly. "I guess I'm just surprised _Witch Weekly_ is hanging onto this angle for so long. Usually they'll tout some piece of nonsense for an issue or two, and then drop it. I mean, what would they have to gain by keeping on with these stories?"

"I'll tell you what they have to gain," put in Ted scathingly. He had dropped by to say hello, and stayed to catch up on office gossip. It had been more than a week since their lunch date, and though he hadn't asked her out again, he had found an excuse to drop by her office every day. Sometimes even two or three times a day.

"Every witch under the age of thirty is arse over tip in love with this imaginary superhero," he went on. "If this gimmick hasn't doubled _Witch Weekly_'s sales in the last nine months, I'll eat my own wand sideways."

"Well, _I'm_ not in love with him," declared Ginny. "I don't even believe in him."

Ted touched her lightly on the hand. Ginny's heart did a little half-skip, and she felt the colour rush into her face. "Of course _you_ don't believe in him. But then you're not just any witch, are you?"

"No?" she said archly. "What am I then?" _Oooh_, she cringed even as she heard herself say it. _Stupid_... _obvious_... _flirty_... _if_ that _wasn't begging for a compliment_...

But Ted was tracing a design on the back of her hand, and it was sending the nicest sensations jumping around inside her stomach. "Lovely," he said at last, looking into her eyes with a peculiar intensity.

She smiled at him, too happy to trust herself to speak.

Alec Ward, the senior Auror in the office, picked up the magazine from Merrilee's desk. "Listen to this:

"Hard Evidence or Hardly Credible? Muggle news continues to report of people from Sussex to Skye who are being rescued, in spectacular ways, by the mysterious man known as 'Quicksilver'; so dubbed because of the Mercury's wings he always leaves behind at the scene.

"Sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, report that at each of these fantastic rescue scenes, wand residue has been detected, leading MLES officials to suspect that the elusive hero is indeed a wizard. Ministry officials refuse to confirm these rumours, even as reports continue to roll in from as far away as South America."

"And look –" he ran his finger down the page. "They go on to list a bloody slew of rescues they're attributing to this bloke: shipyard accidents; runaway Underground cars; fires; even a flood in Colombia." He looked up. "Is it the flood season in Colombia?"

Robert Birtwhistle, who had been an Auror longer than Ginny had been alive, reached over and plucked the magazine from Alec's fingers. "How do I know? Here, give us that." He scanned through the article and gave a low whistle. "No way," he said, shaking his head. "No man, not even a wizard, could do all this single-handedly." Decisively, he tossed it into the bin. "Waste of bloody time, reading that rubbish."

Ted stood up and stretched. "Well, there's no rest for the wicked, as they say. I'm afraid it's back to work for me." He touched her on the shoulder. "Ginny, could I have a word with you?"

Ginny glanced sideways at Merrilee, who winked. She blushed furiously, and followed Ted out into the hallway, ignoring Robert's snickers and Alec's pointed throat-clearing. When they had pulled the door shut behind them, Ted reached out and took her hand. He tugged on it so that she was forced to take a step closer to him. "I was wondering if I could convince you to have dinner with me tomorrow night?"

Friday night. Disappointment flooded her. "Oh! I'm sorry Ted, I already told my parents I'd have dinner at their place tomorrow. Can't we do it another time?"

He smiled at her. So sweet, so quick to understand. "Are you doing anything the next day – Saturday?"

"No, Saturday would be just fine." She couldn't contain the silly smile on her face, though she needn't have tried. He was smiling, too.

"Where should I pick you up?"

"Oh... erm..." That was a difficulty. She couldn't very well tell him to come by Four Winds for her. In the end, she gave him the address of her old flat. She could spend Saturday afternoon there with Sarah, she decided, and go out with him afterward, in the evening.

Draco did not show up for dinner, so she ate alone that night, relieved that he was apparently away from home once again. She had just settled herself peacefully in front of the library fire, with a book and her wine, when the door burst open and he stalked in. He was holding an ice bag to the top of his head and scowling blackly.

Oh, this was nice. Not only was he home, but from the look of it, he was in a towering temper. She didn't bother to hide her irritation. "I thought you were out."

"Well, I'd bloody well like to be, but it's not like I can go anyplace, can I?" he snapped. He slumped into a chair and rubbed peevishly at his temples with his fingertips. "I've got a roaring great headache."

She took a deep breath and counted to ten. She would not let him get to her. Ted had asked her out again, qualifying this day as possibly one of the happiest in her life, and Draco was not going to ruin it. He was nothing but a spoilt child, and because he was miserable, he wouldn't be happy until he had made someone else _more_ miserable. Well, it would not be her.

She affected a tone of exaggerated concern. "Poor thing. Is it _very_ serious, do you think?"

He sighed miserably, but didn't answer, slumping back into his chair instead, and pulling the ice bag over his forehead.

If he wasn't fighting back, _something_ was obviously wrong with him. She relented a little. "D'you suppose it's some kind of aftermath of that virus you had last week? Maybe you never really kicked it."

"Probably." His voice sounded feeble, and far away. "I haven't felt right all week."

She studied his face. He did look pale, and she thought he had probably lost some weight as well. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to go out of her way a little bit, for him. "Do you want a drink?"

"No," he said ungraciously.

So much for her tender mercies. Ginny took another deep breath and counted to twenty.

He stared into the fire, and at length, he spoke again. "I'm going flying: I need some fresh air."

"Do you think that's a wise thing to do, if you're not feeling well?"

"And who are you," he said acidly, "my mother?"

She flinched, but only said coolly, "Suit yourself, then. But if you fall off your broom and break your neck because you're too weak to hold on don't say I didn't warn you." She looked back down at her book, staring at the black-and-white blur of the page, waiting for him to leave.

Instead, he was _looking_ at her. She could tell he was, could almost feel his eyes burning into her. Hateful man; why didn't he just go away? He sat up and tossed the ice bag noisily onto the end table. She ignored him. He shifted in his chair, and sighed loudly.

She ignored him.

He kept staring.

At last she looked up. "_What?_"

"What are _you_ doing tonight?"

She held up the novel she had been reading, and waved it in the air. "I'm _trying_ to read my book."

"Come flying with me, instead."

For a moment, she was surprised into silence. She would have hesitated at the best of times, but with him in a mood like this... it was just asking for more abuse. "I don't want to go flying," she said at last. She did not add "with you", though she thought it.

Draco affected a pious expression. "I think you have a moral responsibility to see that I don't hurt myself by flying when I'm ill." He coughed affectedly, into his hand. "Since I may be _too weak_ to hold on, and all."

Oh! He was exasperating. Well, if he wanted her to go with him, he was going to go about it the way any gentleman would. "You could try," she said with asperity, "asking me nicely."

"I'm not _asking_ you at all."

It was amazing, really, that a person could be so high-handed and still take himself seriously. She would say no. She would pick up her book and walk out of the library, and leave him to his own, stupid, solitary company for the rest of the year. She did not need to be talked to like this. Who, in the name of everything sacred, did he think he was?

Instead, she heard herself say, "All right, Draco. I'll go flying with you on one condition." And the moment the words were out of her mouth, she wanted to kick herself.

"I don't do conditions."

"Fine. Fly by yourself then," she snapped. She picked up her book and pretended to read again.

After a moment, she heard him clear his throat. "Well, what is it, then?"

She looked up warily. He was still staring into the fire, but she noticed there was a peculiar tension about his mouth. _It mattered to him. He cared about her answer._ Well. That was a surprise. But it was good. It had to be good, right? Because they had to live together for a long time, and it would be so much pleasanter if they could be on good terms...

She spoke carefully. "You have to quit talking to me this way. You have to stop being so... so nasty and sarcastic all the time. I can't listen to that." She waited for him to laugh at her and walk out of the room.

He snorted. "And _where_ would be the fun in that, for me?"

But she saw something – not in his eyes, but behind them. 'He doesn't know,' she thought, with a sudden burst of insight. 'He doesn't know how to relate to another human being without sarcasm and... and all those ridiculous defenses of his.'

And for the first time in the fourteen years she had known him, Ginny felt something besides contempt and resentment and hatred for him. Suddenly, she felt sorry for him. She, who had grown up teased and petted and pushed about by her family, but always – _always_ herself with them... never having to pretend anything...

But then she remembered. She remembered what it had been like, her first year at Hogwarts, to have to hide who she was, and what was important to her, because the people who loved her most would not have understood: would have weighed her in the balance and found her wanting. So she had hidden herself from them, and she remembered how very alone and... groundless she had felt, hiding like that. But at least she thought, even in that year, she had always had people who loved her. And whether or not they always understood, being loved unconditionally was a safe place to be. She wondered if Draco Malfoy had ever had the luxury of that safety.

So, almost surprising herself, she heaved an exaggerated sigh and threw down her book. "Oh all _right_, I'll go with you. But it's only because I have to keep you alive for the next year." She stood up. Actually, the thought of flying was beginning to sound appealing.

"Sensible girl," was all he said, and stood to hold open the library door with a mocking bow.

The night was crisp and clear and still; perfect for flying. Pulling up alongside Draco though, she saw that he really did not look well. Though he wore gloves, she could tell he was holding the grips a little too tightly; he flew too low to the handle, and once or twice, misjudged his balance when he banked, and slipped a bit. She began to fear that her flippant comment about falling off the broom was closer to the mark than she'd realised In the end, they had only flown about a mile when she insisted they turn back for home.

He grumbled as they touched down on the frost-rimed lawn of Four Winds. "Insolent woman. I'm not an invalid, you know."

"You will be, if you try to fly in this state. Go inside and get yourself back to bed. If you're not better in a day or two, I'm calling in a Healer, I don't care what you say."

He glared at her, but he stomped ahead of her back into the warmth of the house. She noted, with some concern, that he stumbled a bit as he walked, and she followed, sighing. Ah well, she wouldn't let him get to her. Tomorrow was Friday, and after that Saturday, and her date with Ted.

Friday night found Ginny at The Burrow for the first time in nearly two months; she hadn't been in her parents' home since the night before her wedding. Almost as soon as she stepped out of the fireplace, she had felt something inside herself heal that she hadn't even known was broken. Now, it was an inexpressible relief to sit there with her shoes kicked off in the warm, shabby kitchen, with Fred and Angelina, and George, and Ron with his arm around Hermione, and the promise that Percy and Penelope would arrive just as soon as Percy could get away from the office. She sighed, and sipped at her mug of hot tea, contentment wrapping itself around her like a blanket.

"Where's Bill, Mum? Isn't he coming too?" She hadn't talked to her favourite brother in weeks.

"I'm afraid not, love." Molly frowned over the pot she was stirring. "He's feeling a bit under the weather lately. He caught a nasty virus last week, and hasn't really bounced back from it." She added some oregano, and tasted the sauce.

"Must be going around," Ginny said, without thinking.

"Oh, really?" Molly looked up in mild surprise. "Do you know other people who've got it? I'd like to know what it is; none of the potions he's tried seem to be working for him."

Ginny flushed. "Well... it sounds like what's going around the office," she lied. "I don't know... I can ask around and see if anyone's got any remedies for it."

"I wish you would, dear. He's missed a week of work already, and you know how he hates that." Molly put down her spoon, and wiped her hands on her apron. "All right, you lot, come to the table. I think we're just about ready to start."

Dinner was the usual lively Weasley affair, with everyone talking over everyone else, and a great deal of teasing and laughter. Ginny ate far more than was good for her, and felt more like her old self than she had done in weeks. Afterward, she and Angelina, Hermione and Penelope helped her mother wash the dishes, while her brothers and father went out back for a game of moonlight Quidditch.

She left early, when the other girls went out to join the men in the back meadow. It had been a good evening, but she was in no frame of mind to hang about with mooning couples, or to sit in the kitchen and submit to her mother's anxious questions and endless cups of tea. Best, she thought, to leave while things were going well. And besides, after the rowdy evening, she was more than ready to be by herself and do a little daydreaming about tomorrow night, and Ted.

Draco was not at breakfast, and Ginny spared a grateful thought that he was at least staying out of her way, today. After breakfast, she Apparated over to Diagon Alley and spent the morning getting her hair trimmed and her nails manicured. After that, she browsed for a happy hour through Madam Malkin's and came out with a swirly, coppery-coloured robe that fell just above her knees, and a pair of new, high-heeled, leather boots to go with it.

In the afternoon, she floo'd to her old flat to visit Sarah, and dress for her date with Ted. It was just before lunchtime when she stepped out of the fireplace.

"Hello!" she called.

"In here!" She found Sarah in the kitchen, scooping prawn salad into avocado halves.

A smile lit up her best friend's face. "Hello, love." She put down her spoon, and pulled Ginny into a hug. "You can't think how I've missed you... And how I've worried about you." She stepped back and looked her up and down. "You look good though. Is that a new haircut?"

Ginny flipped her hair over her shoulder. "Do you like it?"

"I do! It suits you. I'm glad you kept the length, though. Hair like yours _should_ be long." She eyed Ginny appraisingly. "How are you doing? Everything going all right up in Scotland?"

"Yes, all right," Ginny said striving to sound breezy and matter-of-fact. "It's all going as arranged: we live under the same roof, and take as much care as we can to stay out of each other's way. I can't say it's exactly scintillating, but at least the year should pass fairly uneventfully, at this rate."

Sarah was apparently satisfied. "Good. Come and eat then, and let's catch up."

They took their plates to the table, and opened a couple of bottles of pumpkin ale.

"_So_," said Ginny meaningfully, when they'd started on their salads. "You haven't asked a thing about the man I'm going out with tonight."

Sarah frowned a little. "Oh, yes. I do want to hear about that. What's his name?"

Ginny rolled her eyes and smiled. "It's only _Ted_, silly, the one you've heard me going on and on about for the last two years."

"Oh, right!" Sarah's eyes grew wide. "From the office next door to yours? Good looking chap? Dreamy eyes, curly hair – that him?"

"The very one!"

Ginny looked triumphantly at her friend, but Sarah only said, "O-o-oh," and began picking at her salad, so that Ginny wasn't able to read her expression.

Ginny laid down her fork. "What? What is 'o-o-oh' supposed to mean?"

"Nothing! It's about _time_ he got around to asking you out. I mean, where have the man's _eyes_ been all this while?" Sarah's voice sounded forced, and she did not meet Ginny's gaze.

"Sarah!"

"What?"

Ginny gave an exaggerated sigh. "What's the matter?"

Sarah didn't answer right away, only poked around in her salad, carefully separating things into neat piles: cashews on one side of the plate, prawns on the other, celery at the top. At last, she spoke quietly. "I think it's really great that he's finally noticed you." She raised her eyes to Ginny's, and her expression was pained. "Only, he's got rather rotten timing, hasn't he?"

Ginny felt her expression harden into a stiff mask even as she strove to look neutral and confident. "What are you talking about?"

"You know what I'm talking about."

"No," said Ginny, a bit more shrilly than she'd intended. "I most certainly do not. I've been mad about this man for two years, and he's finally asked me out. I should think you'd be happy for me!"

"Ginny." Sarah spoke gently. "You're my dearest friend in the world, and I want you to be happy. But what kind of friend would _I_ be to _you_ if I didn't point out the obvious?"

Ginny folded her arms and glared stubbornly at her.

Sarah forged ahead anyway. "You're _married_, Ginny. You've no business going out with one man, when you're wed to another."

Ginny dropped her gaze, and stared at her plate. "It's not like that, Sarah! It's not as if I _want_ to be married." She looked up. "I don't _love_ Draco."

"But was that a condition, when you said 'I do'?"

She closed her eyes, against tears that were suddenly blurring her vision. "Don't," she managed. "Don't ruin this for me."

Her best friend gave her a long look then wisely said no more about it. Instead, she talked about her job and the neighbours, until gradually the awkwardness between them passed. At five o'clock, she pressed Ginny's new dress for her, and helped her curl her hair. When Ted called for her an hour later, Sarah gave her a quick hug good-bye, and whispered in her ear as she did, "Be a good girl, Ginny."

The night was clear and dry, so they walked the three streets over to a Greek restaurant called The Three Fates. Inside, Ted helped her off with her cloak and let his hands rest lightly on her shoulders for a moment. It startled her, and she shrugged them off before she realised what she was doing. He looked bewildered, and she was instantly sorry. It wasn't that she didn't _want_ Ted touching her, she thought, but she was suddenly conscious that they were in a public place, and if anyone she knew should see them together... which was ridiculous, of course, because only her parents, Sarah and Draco knew she was married, and none of _them_ were going to be here. She made up for it by giving Ted her most brilliant smile as they followed the maitre d' to a table in a dimly-lit corner.

He was a lively dinner companion. While they waited for their food, he told her how he had won fifty Galleons in a Quidditch pool for last season's World Cup quarter-finals, by betting on Hungary at five-to-one.

"I only wish I'd bet twice as much on it," he said ruefully. "But hindsight's always twenty-twenty, eh?"

Ginny said something she hoped sounded sympathetic. She had the slightest beginnings of a headache, and was trying to decide if it would be tacky of her to ask the waiter for a pain tablet.

"Puddlemere has a coaching post open."

"Really?" she said, forcing her attention, with an effort, back to the conversation. "What happened to the coach they had?"

"Went over to Wimbourne. I've been trying to speculate on who might fill the post. There are three or four good contenders for it."

Ginny sipped at her wine, trying to concentrate on Quidditch. "Who are they?"

"Well," he began eagerly, "there's Cole, from Suffolk. He's only been in the league two years, but he's polished the Centaurs up into a right smart team, and I think people are noticing him..."

Their starters came just then, and Ginny did not get to hear who else Puddlemere might hire as their coach. The waiter put the salad down in front of her, and she looked at it in dismay. She'd eaten far too much lunch at Sarah's, she realised, to have any appetite left for dinner. She managed a few bites, though, while Ted talked animatedly of his days as a Hufflepuff Beater at Hogwarts. He had such an open, friendly face, and he gestured frequently with his hands, as he talked. The candlelight only served to point up his dark good looks, and she told herself how lucky she was to be here with him.

Their main course came, but her head was really beginning to pound by now, and the rack of lamb that had looked so good on the menu, suddenly seemed daunting.

"Ted," she said, "excuse me for a minute. I'm just going to nip into the ladies'." Muggles, she remembered, sometimes had those little machines in their lavatories that dispensed aspirin and lip gloss and things like that.

Sure enough, there was a vending machine on the wall in the toilet. She didn't have any Muggle change with her, but all the doors of the stalls were standing open, and she saw that she was alone for the moment. Cautiously, she pulled her wand from her shoulder bag, and gave the machine a little tap. "_Alohomora!_" The front door of the thing swung open with a click, and she hurriedly helped herself to one of the aspirin packets inside, before closing the door again. She swallowed the two little white pills with some water, and studied her reflection in the mirror. Even to her own eyes, she looked pale and tense. Damn Sarah anyway, and her overdeveloped sense of right and wrong. She should be able to go out with Ted if she wanted to. It was only dinner. It wasn't as though she were sleeping with him.

She turned away from her reflection, then as an afterthought, left a Sickle on the washbasin. Whoever found it wouldn't have any idea what it was, but she couldn't bring herself to just take the aspirin without at least _trying_ to pay for it.

Ted looked up with concern from his moussaka when she returned to the table. Out of nowhere, the image sprang up of Draco, who always stood up when she entered the dining room at breakfast. It was an old-fashioned courtesy that no one expected of men anymore, and she pushed the image away angrily. Ted was not Draco, anyway. And thank goodness too, she thought, as she pulled out her chair rather harder than she'd meant to, and sat down.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

"Yes. Bit of a headache is all. I took something for it, and I'll be right as rain in a few minutes." She picked up her fork and smiled brightly. "This looks delicious!" She didn't know how she was going to get a bite of it down.

"Are you sure? I could take you home..."

"No, no," she said. "I'll be all right. It's only a little headache, and actually, I'm starting to feel better already."

"Well... if you're sure..."

"I'm sure. Now, you were telling me about Puddlemere's coach..." It was the right thing to say. Ted picked up the thread of the conversation, and before long, was so caught up in a recitation of last season's Berwick lineup that he did not seem to notice her lack of enthusiasm for the meal. Ginny gave up trying to keep the things he was saying straight in her head. Her mind was reeling with scores and statistics and players' names, and in spite of what she'd told Ted, her head was throbbing worse than ever.

She declined the pudding, and sipped a cup of coffee instead, while Ted ate a generous bowl of trifle. She was beginning to feel a bit nauseated, and when at last he pushed back his chair and reached for the cheque, she wanted to weep with relief.

Out on the pavement, the cold air helped revive her, and she did not protest when he tucked her hand firmly into the crook of his arm and pulled her against his side as they walked.

"Do you fancy a stroll?" he asked her.

"Oh..." she faltered. "I'm afraid I'll have to give it a miss. The week-end is beginning to catch up with me. I think if you don't mind, I'll just make an early night of it."

"Of course," he said heartily. "I don't want Cinderella turning into a pumpkin on me." He smiled at her, and put his arm around her shoulders, squeezing them in a way that made Ginny want to jerk away from him. She didn't though, and when they arrived at the door of the flat, he stopped, and turned her so she was facing him. "I'm glad we did this, Ginny," he said huskily. "I had a wonderful time."

"So did I," she lied, and before she could step away, Ted was pulling her close and then his lips were on hers.

Ted kissing her! It was the moment she had dreamed of for years. She closed her eyes and tried to savour it, but oddly, all she could think at the moment was that the kiss was rather wet and tasted of the trifle he had just eaten.

He didn't notice her lack of response, and when he let her go, it was with reluctance. "See you at work Monday?" he whispered. She nodded, and somehow managed to thank him, before escaping upstairs.

Sarah was waiting up for her, with a pot of tea, and Ginny felt some of her tension fall away. Sarah would listen, and would understand, and would never say 'I told you so'. She tucked her legs up into the corner of the sofa and told her best friend all about the evening.

"He drank blush wine," she finished up, morosely. "And he crooked his little finger when he drank his tea."

"He didn't!" Sarah was horrified.

"He did. Are men _supposed_ to drink blush wine?"

"Well, I suppose there's no _law_..."

"He talked about Quidditch the whole time."

"You like Quidditch," Sarah reminded her.

"Yes, but I like lots of other things too. Apparently, he doesn't."

Sarah sighed sympathetically, and they sat in silence, sipping their tea, while the mantle clock ticked the minutes by. "What _would_ you call a manly drink?" Sarah asked, after awhile. "Scotch? Beer?"

Ginny smiled ruefully, feeling very world-weary. "Well, not blush wine, that's all I know." She stood up and stretched. "I need to get to bed." She yawned, and leaned over to give Sarah a peck on the cheek. "Thanks for the tea. And... for everything."

Sarah winked at her, and when Ginny stepped into the fireplace, she felt that her head was not aching nearly so much anymore, but that her heart very much trying to make up for it.


	9. Chapter 09

_**A/N**: Thank you to all you wonderful reviewers, and to **Gabriele**, who once again has worked his formatting genius!_

**Chapter 9**

_A light mist clung to the air, softening the gibbous moon high overhead, when he mounted his broom and kicked off from the roof of the Mansion. He pulled back on the handle, the night air numbing his face as he gained altitude. At a shout from the front, he eased off the handle, levelling out and falling into his place in line behind the others. He had not yet been initiated, so he rode at the back. After tonight, though, things would be different. After tonight he would be riding directly behind the leader, second to no one but his father._

_Ten minutes' hard riding brought them far into the countryside, where lonely dots of light flecked the landscape, separated from each other by wide expanses of rolling fields. On the hillside the ghostly moonlight outlined the shapes of cottages and byres, and rambling stone walls. They started their descent._

_Rookwood stood at the door of the cottage. Two others guarded the windows, while Father held his wand on the Muggle man who was on his knees, weeping and pleading._

_"My God, let him go! If you have any pity... if there is anything human in you at all..."_

_He watched for Father's nod, and when it came he trained his wand on the boy in the middle of the floor, and bellowed the word with all the force of the adrenalin pumping through his veins. "**Crucio!**" He held his wand arm steady, willing it not to tremble, refusing to flinch before the animal noises of terror and pain being ripped from the boy._

_"Our Father which art in Heaven..."_

_Father gave another, almost imperceptible nod and he lowered his wand. The acrid smells of scorched flesh, and urine filled the kitchen, and he felt his stomach pitch. The boy was not dead yet. He had never watched someone die before and he had somehow thought that, after one or two times, the screams would simply stop, and it would all be over. He hadn't expected it to go on and on like this, hadn't known that death would have sounds and smells to it, and would take so damned long to finish._

_"Hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come..."_

_Father struck the Muggle hard, on the mouth, and he cried out, putting his hand to his lips. When he brought it away, it was bright with blood._

_"Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven..."_

_He realized the man was praying. He looked at Father, who gave him a slow, feral smile then deliberately turned his back. It was up to him, then. The boy, panting and moaning on the floor in front of him was his to do with as he saw fit. Whatever he was going to do, he had better make sure it was good. He hesitated, wondering if he dared try the Killing Curse: anything to make it happen quickly. But if he failed, his father would recognize him for the coward he was, and Father must not think of him as a coward. He raised his wand._

_"Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us..."_

_"**Crucio!**" The boy arched and shrieked, begged and pled. He held his wand arm steady, and kept his eyes on his father's back._

Ginny left Sarah's and had hardly set foot out of the fireplace in the Four Winds' library when Lolly rushed at her, wailing.

"Oh, Mistress! Master Draco is taken so sick! He is having a high fever and is tossing and turning in his bed something terrible and Lolly is beginning to fear that if Mistress does not fetch a Healer quick it is soon being too late for him!"

Ginny studied the little creature in amazement. Genuine fear was written on her lined face, and she was hopping from foot to foot, plucking abstractedly at the hem of the house-elf's garment she wore.

"Come off it, Lolly," she said, trying to curb her annoyance. "He can't be as sick as all that."

Lolly gave a wrenching sob and her little shoulders began to tremble. Ginny's head was still throbbing; she would have dearly loved to shake the house-elf until her teeth rattled in her head. Instead, she tried to sound placating. "If he's not feeling better by morning, I'll call in a Healer, no matter what he says. How's that?"

Lolly shook her head mournfully, and two tears leaked from the corners of her bulging eyes. Ginny sighed; apparently, there was going to be nothing for it but to go have a look at him.

"All right Lolly, don't cry! Come on; let's go up together and we'll see how bad it is." She started for the stairs, and the house-elf followed her, sniffling loudly.

Ginny had intended to just pop her head into Draco's bedroom long enough to put Lolly's fears to rest, but when she pushed open the door she knew at once that something was terribly wrong. The room was dim and stuffy, with the pervasive staleness of sweat and fever in the air.

"Draco?" she called out. There was no answer. Hesitantly, she approached the bed, and then stopped and stared in disbelief.

Draco lay amid a tangle of sheets, his eyes sunken, his breathing shallow and laborious. A sheen of sweat covered his skin, which looked strange and waxy in the candlelight, and his blond hair was plastered damply to his forehead.

A shock of real fear ran through her. "How long has he been like this, Lolly?"

At the sight of Ginny's alarm, Lolly began to weep openly. "All afternoon and evening, Mistress."

"Who can we call? Who's his Healer?"

Lolly straightened her shoulders. "Lolly knows just who to send for, Mistress. Healer McLeod is Master Draco's..."

"Send for him _now_," Ginny interrupted her. "And bring him up the moment he gets here."

After Lolly had gone, Ginny straightened the bedclothes and fetched a damp cloth from the bathroom. Hesitantly, she touched it to Draco's face. When he didn't respond, she did it again, more confidently, pushing the damp hair off his forehead and sponging the back of his neck as well. He didn't move, only lay there, breathing in that frightening, shallow way. His pyjama top was soaked with sweat, but she didn't think she could manage to get it off him by herself. She found her shoulder bag, where she had dropped it on a chair, and pulled out her wand.

"_Dessicato_," she said, running it over his shoulders, and around the pillowcase. It wasn't wonderful, but it was drier, at any rate. She would have Lolly change the sheets later. She lit the lamps and opened the bedroom door. She could hear voices downstairs, and a wave of relief washed over her. The Healer was here.

Healer McLeod was an elderly wizard with a kind face, and he examined Draco while Ginny and Lolly hovered in the corridor outside.

When he stepped out of the room, he spoke to Lolly first. "Go sit with your master and keep him comfortable." Lolly bolted into the bedroom, and Healer McLeod turned to Ginny. "He'll be all right with the house-elf, for the time being. Let's you and I go somewhere where we can chat more comfortably."

They went to the kitchen, and Ginny made a pot of tea while he asked her how long Draco had been ill, and what his symptoms had been before this. When the tea was ready, she brought it to the oak table and sat down across from him.

"Thank you, dear," he said, stirring in sugar. He put his spoon down and looked at her directly. "Now, Mrs Malfoy..."

"It's Ms Weasley," she interrupted him. "I kept my old name."

"Pardon me. Ms Weasley, then. I've examined your husband, and frankly, I'm puzzled." He studied her carefully. "This episode has all the earmarks of Curse Sickness."

Ginny felt the blood drain from her head. "Curse Sickness?"

"Yes. Does that ring any bells with you? Do you know of any curses your husband may be under at this time?"

She stared at him, trying to fathom what he was saying, horror mounting in her at what it might mean if... He seemed to sense her distress, and he spoke gently, but insistently. "Ms Weasley, I cannot treat him unless I know what is wrong with him."

Oh Morgana, _Bill_ was under the same curse as Draco! Which meant that if Draco was sick, then Bill would be too. Her mother had _said_ he wasn't well.

"It's The Curse of the Firstborn," she whispered.

"I beg your pardon?"

She told him. She poured it all out to him, and it was like throwing a great, horrible weight off her shoulders. She talked about the curse, and how she and Draco had always despised one another. She told him how she'd been half in love with Ted and how, now that she was married, he'd finally sat up and taken notice. She told him that Bill had been sick too, and even told him about Ted's kiss, and all the while he listened without saying a word.

"Thank you for being honest with me," he said, when she had finished. "And in return, I will be honest with you. I do not know if your husband or your brother will survive this breach of curse..."

"But that's just _it_," Ginny protested. "Why should either of them have to die? I wasn't unfaithful to Draco! I wasn't... at least, not... _that_ way..." It sounded feeble, even to her ears. Her nose began to prickle dangerously and then, as if that one breach had burst the whole dam, she buried her face in her hands, while the tears spilled over and ran down through her fingers. What had she been thinking? What had she done?

At last she sat up, wiped her eyes, and blew her nose on a napkin while the Healer poured her another cup of tea.

"I am not a great expert on curses," Healer McLeod told her, "but though I say it myself, I _am_ something of an expert on marriage. I've been married to the same woman for eighty-seven years." He patted Ginny on the hand. "Will you permit me to give you some advice?"

She nodded dully.

"I have seen many failed marriages in my time: too many. And I have learned from them that unfaithfulness and ruin in marriage do not begin with an act; they begin with an _intent_. That seems to be where you've strayed from the Curse Standard." He looked at her kindly. "But I think you've already ascertained that for yourself, haven't you?"

She nodded mutely, twisting the napkin in her hands.

"On the other hand," he went on, "I have seen many an arranged marriage succeed because of the happier side of that same truth: that faithfulness, happiness and longevity in marriage also begin with an intent."

"So what do I have to do?" she asked dully, "to make him and my brother well again?"

He looked grave. "I will not pretend with you. There is no guarantee that either of them is out of the woods at all. My best advice to you is; align your intentions with what you know to be right, and trust the rest to Providence. Perhaps your husband and your brother will recover yet."

He finished his tea, and stood up. "I'll be back tomorrow to check on him again. Send for me right away if things should go badly in the meanwhile." He stepped over to the kitchen fireplace, and turned to press her hands in his. "Good luck, Ms Weasley." He started to go, and then turned back to her. "You know," he said thoughtfully. "When dealing with the enemy, I've observed that a little... _kindness_ never goes amiss." Then he stepped into the fireplace, and was gone.

Ginny stood in the kitchen rubbing her throbbing temples with fingers that were like ice, sick at the thought that two men – one of them, her own brother – might die because of her selfishness. She knew right from wrong. She knew what marriage meant; what had she been playing at, trying to sneak around a blood curse like that?

She had walked into this arrangement of her own free will; no one had forced her. Now it was time to face up to her responsibility. She went up to her bedroom and changed her new copper-coloured dress and leather boots for an old nightgown and housecoat. She picked up the dress, intending to hang it in the cupboard, but all at once the very sight of it sickened her. She knew she would never be able to wear it again. Dropping it into a pile with the boots, she Vanished the whole thing.

In Draco's room, she found Lolly sponging his forehead with cool water.

"How is he?" she asked, coming to stand beside the house-elf.

"Lolly is seeing no change, Mistress."

"Go ahead to bed, Lolly. I'll stay with him for awhile." When the little elf hesitated, Ginny prodded her. "I'll call you if I need you."

"Lolly is already bathing him, Mistress, and is changing the sheets, so Mistress is not needing to bother with any of that."

"Thank you." Ginny had no idea how she would have managed such a thing by herself, anyway.

After Lolly went off to bed, she studied Draco's face. His features were raw and aristocratic, the nose straight, the cheeks high, the lips full. He would be quite handsome really, were it not for the expression of bored hauteur he perpetually wore. She found herself wondering what he might have turned out like if his life had been different, if he had not been raised among Death Eaters, if he had not grown up so full of himself and so disdainful of the rest of the world.

She sat in a chair beside his bed, and tried to read. From time to time, she bathed his face and neck with a damp cloth, or fussed with the covers, just to feel she was doing _something_. His breathing was not changing for the better, as far as she could tell, and it worried her. She had supposed he would begin to improve, now that she had openly admitted her stupidity.

By midnight, she was certain he was worse. There were odd gaps between his breaths, and when he did breathe in, it was with an odd, rattling noise. And somehow she knew that whatever was happening to him would be happening to Bill at the same time.

'Think, Ginny!' she told herself desperately. Surely there was something more she could do. She wracked her brain, trying to remember what Healer McLeod had told her. 'Faithfulness in marriage also begins with an intent.' Well, she intended to be faithful. What else was there?

And then, it hit her. She flew across the hall to her bedroom and wrenched open the desk drawer, shuffling frantically through it for a bit of parchment and a quill that wasn't broken. She found them both, and sitting down in her chair, scrawled a hasty note. She paused to read it once before she sealed it up.

_Dear Ted,_   
_I regret to have to tell you that at some point, recently, my life has changed and is not going at all in the direction I'd hoped it would when I met you. I cannot explain it any better than that; someday, I hope I will be able to, but for now, it would be best if we did not see each other again._   
_Ginny Weasley_

It was horrible, and awkward, but she did not care. Nothing mattered right now but breaking the thread of expectation that still held her to Ted. She would do damage control later; right now, Bill and Draco were out of time.

She sealed it, and ran downstairs to the Owlery behind the kitchen. Draco kept three owls. Two of them, his own personal eagle owl and a great grey owl were gone. Being nocturnal, they were likely out hunting just now. The third owl though, was a snowy owl, which slept at night, and was kept for emergency posts like this. Ginny stroked her feathers urgently.

"Hera! Wake up, Hera. I have something for you to deliver."

The beautiful white bird came awake, and perfectly trained, held out her leg at once. Ginny tied the message on and whispered Ted's name, then watched her soar away, gilded now and then where the moonlight touched her wings, until the night had swallowed her up. With a sigh of resignation and relief, she headed back upstairs. There was nothing more to do but wait.

Daylight filtered in through the heavy drapes, and whispered against her eyelids. She sat up and stretched. She had fallen asleep in the chair, leaning forward with her head buried in her arms on the edge of Draco's bed. She rubbed her eyes and looked at him.

He was better. Not completely well, but his breathing was normal, and he had lost that terrible sunken, waxy look he'd had in the night. Which meant that Bill would be all right too.

She stood, with a lightness that was almost giddiness, and felt his forehead with the back of her hand. It was cool and dry. She laughed aloud. They were going to make it. She went to wake Lolly, and to floo her mother. She needed to find Bill right away, and be sure he was all right. And then, she needed a bath and a good, long sleep in her own bed.

Bill, who had spent the night in hospital, was going to be all right, and somehow, the Healers there had missed the diagnosis of Curse Sickness, and were merely calling his illness a bad virus. As Bill was clearly on the mend now, and would probably be able to go home tomorrow, Ginny did not bother to enlighten anyone about it. She spent the afternoon playing chess with him in his hospital room, then floo'd back to Four Winds, intending to look in on Draco briefly before she went down to dinner.

She stopped outside his bedroom door and hesitated. Had Healer McLeod told him what had caused his illness? If so, he would hate her for what she had almost done to him, and if she were honest, she knew he had every right. There was no getting away from it though; she had to see how he was. She bit her lip and knocked.

"Come in."

He was sitting up in bed, reading the _Daily Prophet_, which he put down when she opened the door. He was still pale and drawn, with his fair hair tousled and his face shadowed with several days' growth of beard. She had never seen Draco Malfoy less than perfectly buttoned-up before, and for a moment, she felt a disturbing, thoroughly physical appreciation for him. She wondered what his reaction would be if she were to tell him that, in spite of the usual care he took with his appearance, he actually looked better this way. He looked at her for a long moment, his expression inscrutable, while Ginny's heart pounded and she waited for him to lash out at her.

"Don't stand there with the door open," he said finally. "Come in here where I can talk to you."

She closed the door behind her and approached the edge of his bed. His duvet, and the bed hangings were scarlet, something she had been too preoccupied the other times she'd been in here to really take note of. She searched his face anxiously, feeling like a naughty child being called on the carpet by a parent, hoping that somehow he would not be too hard on her.

He scrutinised her as she stood there. "The Healer tells me you saved my life."

'I didn't. I nearly killed you.' Even as she thought it, relief washed over her. Just the way he said it made her certain Healer McLeod hadn't told him the illness had been Curse Sickness. Silently, she blessed the old man, and promised to do something to repay him someday. She forced herself to shrug lightly. "I only called in the Healer. I think I should have done it long before I did."

"According to Lolly, you sat up all night with me." He sounded almost accusing.

"Well, someone had to."

"Lolly could have done it."

'Lolly didn't have a guilty conscience driving her,' she thought. Silence fell between them, and she became very conscious of the rise and fall of his breathing, and of her own pulse, beating slower now, but heavy in the quiet. To cover her awkwardness, she reached over and picked up the newspaper he had dropped on the blankets.

She glanced down at the headline. "Oh, _please_!" she exclaimed, without thinking.

"What's wrong?" Draco pulled the paper from her hand and read the headline aloud. "Quicksilver Saves Alaskan Cruise Liner from Going Down in Storm." He looked at her quizzically. "Yes, I read that. Some mysterious, superhero-type person going about saving the world last night. What's that all about?"

She snorted inelegantly. "It's some nonsense _Witch Weekly_'s been touting for ages now." She took the paper back from him, and stared at the article. "I can't believe it's in the mainstream newspaper, though. Whatever happened to journalistic integrity?"

"How do you mean?"

She threw the paper back down in disgust. "Well obviously, it isn't true! It can't be anything but sensationalism."

"Why can't it be true?"

"Because!" She gestured fruitlessly. "Because it's too _good_ to be true. No one does wonderful things like this without wanting recognition for it. And yet..." she raked the paper scathingly with her eyes, "this person apparently goes to great length to hide his identity."

"What about your old friend Harry Potter?" Draco asked, with an acid tinge to his voice. "He was always the reluctant hero, wasn't he?"

"I suppose so."

"Well, maybe Potter is this mysterious Quicksilver."

She hadn't thought of that. It _did_ sound rather like something Harry would do. "Well, anyhow," she said, aware that the topic of Harry Potter was bound to be thin ice for the two of them to skate on, "I suppose there must be something to it, if the _Daily Prophet_'s running it. Don't they have to check their sources, and all that?"

He shrugged. "That's more than I can tell you. All I know is, it sounds dreadful: mucking about up in the Bering Sea, saving a load of Muggles in the middle of damned inconvenient weather. I'm glad I was safe in my own bed last night."

"You weren't exactly _safe_ in your own bed, last night," she reminded him dryly. "You nearly died."

He didn't answer her at first, only looked searchingly at her until she felt the colour rush into her face. "Stay here and read to me," he said abruptly.

It startled her. "Read to you? Read _what_ to you?"

"Wasn't there some book you were reading in the library, the other night?"

"Oh – that was just a Muggle novel. You wouldn't like it."

He closed his eyes and leaned back against the pillows. "Read it to me anyway."

She stared at him, wondering that he could be so absolutely egotistical and self-assured, and expect her just to fall in line with his plans. "Maybe I can't," she said snappishly. "Maybe I have other plans tonight."

"You haven't any other plans." He did not open his eyes.

He was right, she hadn't. That didn't mean she had to stay here and read to him, though. She tried another tack. "Have you ever heard of saying 'please'?"

"No." She thought she saw the ghost of a smile playing around his lips.

She rolled her eyes. "_Oh_, you're arrogant!"

He did smile then, with his eyes still closed. "But I'm _ill_," he said. "Doesn't that make you feel bad?"

The thing was, of course, that it did. "Oh, all _right_." She flounced away, and went to her own room to fetch the book and change into old jeans and a sweatshirt. When she came back, she saw that Lolly had brought up two supper trays for them.

"Well," she said, with a touch of asperity. "Everything seems to be arranged."

"Yes it does, doesn't it? Pull up a chair, there's a good girl."

She chose to ignore his high-handedness, and pulled up the armchair she had already spent one night in, and tucked her legs up underneath her, opening the book. "The Scarlet Pimpernel," she began. "By Baroness Orczy."

"Odd name. What is it, Hungarian or something?"

Ginny ignored him and began to read. "A surging, seething, murmuring crowd of beings that are human only in name, for to the eye and ear they seem naught but savage creatures, animated by vile passions and by the lust of vengeance and of hate..."

"Damned depressing start," he cut in. "I thought this was supposed to be a love story."

She glared at him. "If you want me to read to you, you can't interrupt." He affected a look of meekness, which did not fool her for one moment, but he did not interrupt again.

The clock ticked on the mantle as she read, and they finished the supper trays that Lolly had brought. From time to time, she glanced up from the page at him. He was utterly absorbed. Ginny sighed and settled back in the chair, giving herself up as she always did to the magic of the printed page.

She was in the middle of the sixth chapter when he spoke. "It's Blakeney."

She stared at him. "What?" Over the last hour and a half, she had sunk down in the chair and stretched out her legs, propping them up on the edge of his bed, and become so engrossed in the story that she'd half-forgotten he was there.

"Blakeney," he said. "Blakeney's the Scarlet Pimpernel."

"How do you know? Have you read this before?"

"No," he said impatiently, "but it's obvious, isn't it? He's the least likely one to be a hero. Besides, the lovely Marguerite never would have married him if he'd been as useless as he seems on the surface."

"She wouldn't?"

"No. She saw _something_ in him that made her believe he wasn't a total dead loss as a husband."

"She did? I mean, _I_ know she did, but how do _you_ know? It doesn't come out until later in the book."

"I know because I'm brilliant, of course." He yawned and closed his eyes. "That's enough for one night." He pulled the covers up around his face, and turned his back to her.

Ginny stared at him. He was _dismissing_ her? "That's it? That's all? You're not going to say 'thank you' or..."

"Close the door on your way out."

Ginny stood up and threw the book as hard as she could at his arrogant, insufferable back. At his muffled "Ouch!" she smiled grimly and stalked from the room, slamming the door behind herself.

"Bastard," she muttered, when she was in the corridor. She should have felt relieved that Draco had dismissed her from reading any longer. Instead, she felt oddly as though she'd just been rejected. She headed downstairs to get her cloak and broomstick. A good, fast fly was what she needed right now. That would help clear her head and put things back into perspective. It would remind her of who they both were, and that there was no being friendly with someone like Draco Malfoy, something she had just come dangerously close to forgetting.


	10. Chapter 10

_**A/N**: It's all **Gabriele**: if it weren't for him, this story wouldn't be here. Thank you to those of you who've taken the time to review, and said such nice things._

**Chapter 10**

_The screams of the Muggle boy were beginning to waver, and then to crack. He held his wand arm steady and tried to quell the bile that was rising in his throat. The effort of keeping himself from vomiting made his eyes water and sting. He stared at his father's back so he would not have to look at the boy._

_And then, a sudden, brilliant surge of red lit up the room, and the side of the kitchen blew inwards, in an explosion of plaster and glass and thatch. There were cries and flashes of light, and the hole where the wall had been was filled with the silhouettes of a dozen robed men training their wands into the room._

_He dropped his own wand. Dimly, he heard someone shout, "Reducto!" The blast picked him up like a rag doll, and something as hot and heavy as a cannonball caught him on the side of the head and flung him across the room. He heard, rather than felt the shattering of glass before he hit the trunk of a tree outside. He crumpled to the ground, and everything went black._

_The face swam in and out of his consciousness, and he dreamed in snatches of poetry._

"If thine enemy is hungry, give him meat. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink for in so doing, thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head."

_There was an awful, pasty dryness to his mouth and an odd ringing in his ears. 'Water,' he thought, but could not make his mouth form the words._

"Bless them that persecute you; bless and curse not."

_The pain in the side of his head; oh, Circe, the pain..._

"Father forgive them, for they know not what they do."

_And then, once again, only merciful blackness._

Monday, Ginny looked in on Draco before she went to work, but he was sleeping. At the office, she found a vase of pink roses waiting for her on her desk, and had to fight down a surge of irritation when she saw Ted's name on the card. It was amazing, the difference a change of perspective made; if the flowers had come last Friday, she would have been ecstatic. Now, she only wished Ted would go away and leave her alone. She moved the roses to the top of the file cabinet, where they weren't quite so conspicuous and with a sigh of resignation, she went to thank him.

She found him in the Ministry of Education office. His concern for her was evident. Clearly, he thought that something had gone terribly amiss for her Saturday night after their date, and she did not disabuse him of this notion. She refused to elaborate, however, only maintaining that she could not see him anymore. At last he was forced to take 'No' for an answer. He wasn't pleased, however, and Ginny went back to work feeling like a heel for having encouraged him, and then thrown him over with so little explanation. When she left the office that evening, she took the roses with her. Two streets over was an Apparation Port that no one from the Ministry offices ever used. She pitched the flowers into the rubbish bin beside it, then Apparated home to Four Winds.

On Tuesday morning, when she came down to breakfast, Draco was at the table reading the _Daily Prophet_ and finishing a cup of coffee. It was the first time he had been out of bed since his illness. He was still pale, and a bit hollow about the eyes, but otherwise he looked well. She was vaguely disappointed that he had shaved, and then she was annoyed at herself for caring. She was annoyed at herself for even _noticing_.

He stood, as he always did, when she entered the room. "Oh good, I was hoping to catch you before you went off to work."

"You were?"

"Yes, but no hurry. Go ahead and get your breakfast; we can talk while you eat."

She wondered what he could have to say to her. Self-consciously, she took a plate from the sideboard and helped herself to eggs and sausages, then brought her plate to the table and poured herself a cup of coffee. When she had started eating, he put down the paper.

"I'd like to have some friends in to dinner," he said, without preamble.

"Oh." She was not sure what he expected her to say. She supposed he could have friends in to dinner whether she liked it or not.

"What do you think?" he prompted.

"What do _I_ think? I think it's your house and you can do whatever you please. Just tell me when you're planning it, and I'll stay out of the way."

He grimaced. "That's not exactly what I had in mind."

"No? What did you have in mind?" She did not like the way he was frowning at her.

"I was hoping you would agree to... act as hostess."

She put down her knife and fork and stared at him. "_Hostess_?"

"Well, yes... They're rather good friends of mine and, well... I'd like you to meet them."

"Draco," she said, bewildered and a little annoyed. "Why on earth would you want me mixing with your friends? I think I can safely tell you we wouldn't have anything in common." She knew she sounded rude, but Merlin, she couldn't think of anything in the world she'd rather do less than spend an evening in the company of Crabbe and Goyle.

He regarded her thoughtfully. "I think you might be pleasantly surprised." When she didn't answer, he added, "You would be doing me a favour if you said yes." He folded the paper and pushed back his chair.

There was no way she was even going to consider such a proposition... Was there? She studied his pallor and the smudges under his eyes with a twinge of guilt. He looked wretched, and it was all her fault... It seemed she was going to be slave to a guilty conscience for a long time, yet. Besides, he was _asking_, for once. Well, _nearly_ asking, anyhow. She blew out a breath. "When?"

"I though perhaps Saturday night."

"Can I think about it?" Get up the courage to say 'No' flat out, was more like it.

"Of course. Only, Lolly would need a day or two notice."

"All right." She picked a piece of toast from the toast rack and began to crumble it absently into her eggs. "Will you be home tonight? I could think about it and let you know then."

"Yes, I'll be here." Did she imagine the look of relief on his tightly-controlled face? He paused in the doorway, and looked as though he were about to say something else. But he only nodded at her, and then he was gone.

She thought about it all day. When she was in Suffolk, building a safe perimeter around a wizarding graveyard, she wondered what kind of friends Draco Malfoy had, that he wanted to have them in to dinner and introduce them to _her._

When she was installing a Muggle-proof security shield around a pub in Brighton, she was certain he had ulterior motives, and worked herself into a cold fury, determined that she would never allow herself to be used in whatever nasty scheme he had come up with now.

By the time she was doing a routine, weekly test of a castle's wards on the Isle of Man, her curiosity had overcome her trepidation. She decided, with spirit, that she would let him have his dinner party. She would sit beside him, and she would meet the evening head-on and she would sneer at the lot of them. She had never been one to shrink from something just because it was not to her taste. She had married her worst enemy, for Hester Starkey's sake: she could sit through an evening of boorish company and tolerate Draco's moronic friends, and perhaps come out of it with a laugh or two, but she certainly wasn't going to avoid it, simply because it might be _difficult_.

That night, when Ginny came down to the dining room, he was waiting for her. Other than the Sunday night in his room, it was the first time in two months of marriage that they had eaten an evening meal together. He was dressed in heavy, navy robes, and Ginny was uncomfortably conscious of her own well-worn jeans and jumper. It put her on the defensive though, and gave her courage to attack the matter at hand. She waited until Lolly had served them and subsided to the kitchen, before she spoke.

"I'll be glad to have your friends in for dinner on Saturday."

He didn't exactly smile, but she saw his face relax in a way she had seldom seen it do before.

"But," she continued, "I'd like to have a few things clear before you invite them."

"Oh?" He looked wary.

"Yes. First of all, how many friends are you talking about?"

"Two men and their wives."

"Do I know them?"

"No."

Good, not Crabbe and Goyle then. "Will it be a formal thing?"

"Do you want it to be?"

"Lord, no," she said, vehemently. "If it's up to me, I'd like to be able to breathe during the evening."

He looked cautious, and she realised, with an unexpected stab of understanding, that he was not a man used to being casual. She had never seen him wear anything but robes. Well, robes and pyjamas.

She relented a little. "How about just informal dinner robes, then?"

"That would be fine." He looked relieved.

"Saturday, then. What time?"

"Seven?" It was later than Lolly usually served dinner.

"Drinks at seven, or dinner at seven?" she asked.

"Drinks at 6.30, and dinner at seven." He hesitated. "There's one other thing..."

She raised her eyebrows.

"I haven't told them this is all... arranged." He gestured between them.

"Why ever not?"

He looked self-conscious. "I think they might... feel sorry for me, if they knew."

"And they're not going to feel sorry for you when they think it's real and then find that I'm gone in a year?"

"I'll worry about that when the time comes. For now..."

"You want me to pretend to be in love with you?" She found this amusing, and watched him flush.

"You don't have to go to that extreme."

She laughed mirthlessly. "I'm not sure I could fake it, in any case. But I _can_ pretend this is all... _normal_, if it will help."

An expression of something like relief came over his face. "That would be fine."

"Good." She smiled, feeling somehow that she had the upper hand here. "One more thing."

He looked wary. "What?"

"For the next nine months and twenty-seven days, you and I are going to be living in the same house. You're going to have to stop calling me 'Weasley'."

He looked taken aback. "All right," he said slowly.

"The name," she said, "is 'Ginny'." She flashed him a bright smile, feeling unaccountably like she'd won a battle she hadn't known she was fighting.

He didn't want to call her 'Ginny'. For one thing, it was a nickname, and he did not call people by nicknames. Ever. It suited her, but that was not the point. Her real name, he knew, was Ginevra, and he did not want to call her that, either. What _was_ the point, then? Draco debated it with himself throughout the morning, as he caught up his correspondence and pored over the accounts for one of his vineyards in Australia.

The point, he was forced to admit at last, was that it was one more barrier torn down between the two of them. He could not afford any more barriers down: there had been too many of those already, this week. She had seen him sick and unconscious: what if he had been delirious? What if he had, not knowing what he was saying, given something away?

She had... somehow, taken care of him. He tried not to dwell on what that might mean, what she might have seen. According to the house-elf, she had nursed him tirelessly, sacrificing her own health, et cetera et cetera... He grimaced. She didn't appear to be any the worse for wear from it; he wasn't worried about _that_. But when he had awoken from the fever, he had been sweaty and dishevelled, and she had _seen_ him like that. It put him at a disadvantage; it made him look... weak.

And then, she had read to him. What had possessed him to insist on it? She had a low, sort of musical voice. A bit husky. He'd liked listening to her. She did the voices, when she read; everything from low cockney to aristocratic French. He had quite forgotten himself for awhile, caught up in the story, and the sound of her voice... and next thing he'd known, her feet were on his bed, almost touching his leg, and he had looked up to see the firelight shining on her hair.

Her hair. It was obscene, really, how brilliant it was. A woman who cared more about her appearance might have toned it down with a Colouring Charm, made it more of a sophisticated auburn or a playful strawberry blonde. She didn't seem to care about that at all. It was a strange colour, not one colour at all, but a hundred different ones, gold and copper and bronze, all woven together into something entirely its own. An alive colour. He had never liked red hair. It was too distracting.

And now, when the barriers between them had already begun to crumble, he was supposed to call her by her first name. He threw down his quill in frustration, and went for his broom. He hadn't flown in days, and physically he was feeling quite his old self again. Fit enough to fly anyhow, and he needed to clear his head.

He wondered, as he flew above a stand of spruce forest, what stupidity had prompted him to suggest having friends in to dinner. He was probably risking too much. She might hate them. She might choose the evening to lash out at him, and exact revenge for all those years he had treated her so abysmally, at school.

But they were a vital part of his life, these people, and he couldn't say why, exactly, it was so important for him to introduce her – _Ginny_ – to them. He only knew she thought badly of him, and that he wanted her to see he did have friends who were good people. He told himself he was only trying to prove her unfounded prejudices wrong.

"Ginny." He said it aloud, experimenting, tasting it. "Ginny." It was a pretty word, a warm word. It rolled off his tongue easily. He touched down at the edge of the lawn, and went to lock up his broom in the shed. Her Galaxy waited in the rack near his Stratosphere's empty holder. "Ginny," he said to it.

Yes, it suited her.

Ginny was in a state of nerves Saturday that she hadn't experienced since the night she'd met Malfoy at The Blue Onion. Something of the way she felt must have shown at breakfast, because Draco ate quickly and disappeared before she had finished picking at her toast and eggs.

First thing after breakfast, she ransacked her wardrobe and decided she owned nothing that made her look any better than a potato in a burlap sack. She went searching for Draco and found him in the library.

"I think I'm going to have to go into town and buy something to wear tonight."

He looked up from the ledger he was writing in, surprised. "Of course. Do you need me to come with you?"

Good lord, that would have been more than she could have taken, in her frame of mind. "No, just..." Here, she fumbled. On her own salary, she wasn't going to be able to afford anything that was going to measure up to Draco's expectations of what his wife should wear to entertain guests. "I thought I'd go to your tailor again, and wanted to be sure that was all right with you?"

"By all means." She thought he looked pleased. "Get whatever you want." He didn't mention payment. She'd noticed though, on their wedding night, that no money had changed hands between Draco and the tailor. She assumed it was considered a subject too vulgar to talk about, and she didn't mention it now. No doubt Natty Toggs would send them the bill later.

She Apparated to the port at Princes and Edward, then found her way to the abandoned building where a tap of her wand revealed the sign _Natty Toggs: Designs for Discriminating Wizards_.

She entered to the same cries of delight and enthusiastic embraces she'd met eight weeks earlier, though this time, Natty contented himself with a respectful kiss on her hand before calling for Mrs. Selvedge. Mrs. Selvedge, in her turn, took Ginny into the back room and fussed over a tea tray for her, before bustling back into the shop to search for a suitable robe. Ginny leaned against the soft chair back and sipped her tea. It was nice, this treatment. She stretched out her legs and wiggled her toes. A girl could get used to being rich. Perhaps a year from now she would miss this new life the littlest bit after all.

Mrs. Selvedge bustled back in, with three robes over her arm. She hung them carefully in the air, waving her wand expertly over each of them so that they took on Ginny's exact proportions.

"Now then," she said briskly, when the robes were all turning slowly in the air before them. "Like all of Toggs ' pieces, no two are alike, however the cream one..." she gestured, and a spotlight fell from her wand, onto one of the robes. "The cream has classic Toggs features that distinguish it from other designers: the silver bodice clasps; the skirt that is slit up one side; the laces on the shoulders..." Ginny relaxed into the seat and gave herself up to the luxury of shopping, and buying, for once in her life, anything she wanted.

In the end, she chose a clingy, sage-coloured robe with plain, elegant lines that cost more than her month's paycheck. It went well with her hair, and anyhow, she could never have worn cream: she would have spent the whole of the evening worrying about spilling soup on herself. She left the shop, with Natty's promise of having the robe delivered that afternoon ringing in her ears, and walked to the Apparition Port, trying to decide what to do with herself for the rest of the day.

She checked her watch. It was one-o'clock. She couldn't just go back to Four Winds and sit around for six hours: if she did that, she'd be a raving lunatic by the time the guests arrived. Briefly, she considered dropping in at The Burrow, but decided against it. She had too much on her mind right now to cope with her mother's anxious ministrations and her brothers' – any of them who might have popped in for Saturday lunch – questions about what she'd been doing with herself for the last two months.

In the end, she went back to her old flat to visit Sarah again. It was lovely to kick her shoes off and lie on the sofa with her feet up, this time with a perfectly clean conscience, and drink pumpkin ale straight from the bottle while the Wizarding Wireless played Faeries on Fire and Sarah caught her up on all the gossip. It turned out there was rather more than gossip to catch up on in the week since they'd seen each other: Sarah was getting married.

"...I would have told you before anybody, but I didn't know where to _find_ you! Bobby just – just came out and _asked_ me, and here I was, thinking _he_ thought I was just a passing fancy, but I didn't realise, until he asked, just how much I love him and how much I would hate the thought of ever living without him..." She paused for breath, looking positively lit up from within.

Watching her, Ginny felt a restlessness stir in her, that she couldn't define. She recognised it as more than just wanting to be free of Draco and Four Winds and the Curse of the Firstborn. It was not a longing for Ted: good heavens, she shuddered now, at the very thought. No, it was just that she was somehow envious of the luminous joy that Sarah wore like a mantle: it was something she herself hadn't felt in a very long time. A long time, she admitted to herself, before she had married Malfoy and moved to Four Winds.

"Has Bobby moved in here with you?" she asked.

"Please!" Sarah scoffed. "I'm no Muggle! No, we'll wait for a proper wedding."

"And that's all right with him?"

"It'll have to be, won't it? It's the way _I_ want it, and he thinks I hung the moon, so..."

Ginny smiled half-heartedly. 'It must be... nice,' she thought, 'to have someone think you hung the moon. Someone you _want_ to think it, of course.'

"And I want you to be my bridesmaid, Ginny," Sarah was saying. "If we set the wedding for the first week in May, could you do it?"

Ginny sat up and put her ale bottle on the coffee table. She reached for Sarah's hands and tried to speak through the tears that were suddenly clogging her voice and making her nose prickle. "Of course I can do it! I'm honoured that you asked me."

Sarah peered at her with concern. "Are you all right, Ginny? I mean really all right? He's not... not mistreating you, is he?"

She shook her head and sniffed loudly. "No, he's perfectly correct in his behaviour toward me. Mostly, we just ignore each other, which is all I ask." She squeezed her friend's hands, and lied. "I'm just happy for you, is all."

After that, they talked about plans for the wedding, and who, among their friends, was going out with whom. Sarah gently pried for information about Ginny's life at Four Winds, but Ginny didn't want to talk about it. "I'll feel like it soon enough," she promised her friend. "And no doubt you'll get an earful, then."

At half past four, Sarah walked her to the Apparation Port at the end of the street. "Well, Love," she said, pulling Ginny into a hug, "if you need me, you know where to find me." She pushed Ginny back to arm's length and looked at her shrewdly. "Which is more than _you_ can say to _me_."

Ginny smiled wryly. For a reason she couldn't have articulated, she wasn't ready to talk about her new life with anyone, just yet. She and Draco were the only ones who could satisfy the blood curse, and therefore, no one could fully understand their life this year the way they could. It was an intensely private battle she had to fight. "If you need me, my mum and dad know where to find me," she told her friend, and Sarah had to be satisfied with that.

When she stepped out of the Apparition Port at Four Winds, she found Draco pacing in the foyer. He practically leapt at her. "Where the devil have you been?" He had a nearly savage look on his face. She had never seen such an expression on him, and a chill swept over her at the thought that she, somehow, had provoked it. She took a step backward.

"I told you, I went shopping."

"The robe you bought arrived hours ago." He was glaring at her with a ferocity that alarmed and confused her. She hadn't spent too much money, had she? He had _told_ her to get whatever she needed.

"I had some time to kill after that, so I went to visit my old flatmate." He turned away from her abruptly, so she could not see his face, but she watched his back intently and saw the tension gradually ebb out of his shoulders. "Why? Whatever's the matter?"

He whirled around and gestured fruitlessly. "I thought... oh hell, never mind. You're here, so that's all that counts." He started to leave, but she caught him by the sleeve.

"Wait. You thought – _what?_"

"It was nothing," he muttered, and he looked so self-conscious that Ginny suddenly thought she understood.

"You thought I wasn't going to come back?" she said gently.

"Well, it would have been sticky for me to have had to explain away an absentee wife, wouldn't it? It was a needless worry, I can see that now," he spoke brusquely, and shrugged off her hand. "Do you think you could _manage_ to be down here a little early, to greet them when they come?"

The acid in his tone stung her. "I think I could just _manage_ that."

"Good." He nodded curtly at her, and stalked away. She glared after him. That was nice: not a word of thanks for what she was about to put up with, tonight. And just when she thought he was beginning to be a little human, he all but turned and slapped her in the face. It would teach her to waste her sympathy on the likes of him.

In spite of the bravado she had been building up all day, for just this moment, Ginny's heart began to hammer in her ears, and her throat went dry when she heard the familiar 'crack' in the Apparation Port. She wanted to turn and bolt out of there. She could not do this, could not spend the evening sitting at the table, making conversation with a group of haughty, bigoted, cruel people who would surely despise her once they heard her family name, and would spend the evening looking down their noses at her. She had agreed to live in the same house with this man for a year, but that didn't mean she had to open herself up to the scorn of his friends. What had she been thinking when she had agreed to this? She had been mad.

She began to turn away, but Draco seemed to sense what she was thinking, and reached for her hand, and pulled her back. He laced his warm fingers through her clammy ones, and held them firmly, forcing her back to his side, forbidding her to run.

The Port opened and Draco stepped forward, pulling her with him. "Kincaid!" he cried, with a warmth so wholly unlike himself that Ginny turned to gape at him. He let go her hand to clasp the forearm of the person who stepped out first: a great, shaggy, blond bear of a man, who clapped him heartily on the back. Draco returned the clap, and Ginny watched them, astonished. Draco was... well, not smiling, exactly, but his face had lost the stiff, formal mask he kept on around her, and there was genuine, warm pleasure in his eyes. She had never seen him unbend so much. In a moment's time, he appeared to be an entirely different man from the one she had lived with for two months.

The woman who followed the big man out of the Port appeared to be a few years older than Ginny, and she was as small and compact as her husband was big. Without ceremony, she put her hands on Draco's shoulders, stood on her tiptoes, and kissed him on the cheek. To Ginny's bewilderment, Draco bent down to allow it, curling the corner of his mouth tolerantly. The woman stepped back to appraise him, looking him up and down shamelessly.

"Married life agrees with you then," she observed, in a rich, Scottish brogue. Draco was saved from answering this when she turned to Ginny, and smiled at her. "Can I meet her then, Draco, or are you going to leave the introductions up to us?"

"Of course you can meet her." His arm went around her shoulders, and Ginny felt herself pulled against the lean, solid length of him. She fought to wrap her mind around the sheer number of rules that were being turned upside down on her tonight. Her arm was crushed between them and there was nothing for it but to put it gingerly around his waist. She held it there awkwardly. It was uncomfortable because he was so tall, and his arm was too heavy on her shoulders. More uncomfortable though, was the clean, aggressive scent of him that sent something stabbing through her: something sharp and sweet and disturbing that made her want to push him away.

"My wife, Ginny Weasley." He said it smoothly, without a hint of derision or apology, and she was grateful. "Ginny, may I present Betsy and Lowen Kincaid..." Betsy beamed at her, while Lowen ducked his head and turned a shade of pink incongruous in such a large man. "...and David and Fiona Gordon," he added just as a second couple stepped out the port. They nodded at her and smiled. No one balked when they heard her name, she had to give them all that.

"Well," said Betsy brightly, "go on and kiss your bride for us, then, Draco."

The bottom dropped out of her stomach. Surely he wouldn't – he would make _some_ excuse – but Draco was saying, "my pleasure," and bending his head toward her. Her ears filled with a panicked roaring and she had time to do little more than react. She lifted her face, and automatically, her eyes closed. She felt his lips brush lightly across hers, and then it was over. Her eyes fluttered open and she released a breath she hadn't known she had been holding. They had got through it. It hadn't been so hard.

But to her horror, Betsy was laughing, and saying, "_That's_ not a kiss! Kiss her properly, Draco!"

"Betsy!" Fiona protested, but Betsy brushed her off.

"We've all waited a good, long time to see you married, and now we want to enjoy it."

She felt his hesitation. But he pulled her around to face him and then one hand was on her waist, the other firm on the back of her neck, and he was kissing her, _really_ kissing her. His lips were warm, and surprisingly soft, and they lingered on hers until she could hardly breathe. She swayed, clutching at the front of his robes to keep her knees from buckling. And then his lips were gone, and he was saying in a tolerant drawl, "Will that do?"

"Yes," said Betsy smugly. "That'll do just fine."

But Ginny thought a little wildly that no, no it wouldn't do _at all_. And she wasn't quite certain what she meant by that.

They went into the library, and while Draco poured drinks and handed them around, Betsy Kincaid cornered her by the bar.

"You," she pronounced guilelessly, "are perfectly lovely." She reached for Ginny's hand and held it fast in hers while she turned a mock glare on Draco. "Why didn't you tell me she was so gorgeous, Draco? I might have worn something different if I'd known I was going to look like an old fishwife beside her!" She smoothed the expensively cut, rose-coloured robes she wore and Draco quirked his mouth dryly.

Without waiting for an answer from him, she turned back to Ginny and said in confidential tones, "I want to know everything about you, Ginny, especially how you came to snare our Draco, when we were sure he was such a confirmed old bachelor! But everyone's always warning me not to come on too strong. I promised Lowen and Fiona I'd hold back and not make you tell it all at once. You've no idea how hard I'm trying to contain myself just now, so's not to scare you off." She cast an imploring glance at her husband and said in a stage-whisper, "I'm not botching it too badly, am I, luv?"

Ginny did not know whether to laugh or cry. There was something very open and artless about Betsy, and her instinct was to like her. Betsy was a friend of Draco's, however, and Ginny was hedging her bets for the time being. She was saved from either laughing _or_ crying when Fiona Gordon joined them. "Pay her no mind, Ginny. She'll talk the hind leg off a mule if she's allowed: You have to know when to walk away."

"I only let Fiona talk to me that way because she's my sister," Betsy said fondly. "She's five years older than me but you'd think she was my mother, the way she goes on, sometimes."

Ginny looked at the two sisters. Where Betsy was small and energetic, Fiona Gordon was tall and serene, and beautiful in a classic sort of way. Her husband David was serious and bespectacled, making Ginny think of a scientist, or a professor. "How _did_ you meet Draco?" Fiona was asking her.

"Oh yes, tell us!" Betsy chimed in, settling herself on the sofa and patting the cushion beside her. "I like a good love story."

Cautiously, Ginny sat. She didn't like the direction this conversation was taking. She was still reeling from the kiss, and wasn't sure she trusted her own judgment to say the right thing, at the moment. "We..." she sipped at her wine, to give herself time to collect her thoughts. It would be best, she thought, to stick as close to the truth as possible, without giving too much away. She glanced up at Draco, who did not appear to be paying any attention to the conversation. "We were at school together, years ago, actually."

"At Hogwarts? Lucky you. We were sent away to Beauxbatons, ourselves." The sisters grimaced at each other. Evidently, there was a history there.

"Yes," Ginny forged ahead. "We were at Hogwarts, but in different houses, so we didn't mix often. I'm afraid Draco didn't like me much, back in those days." He looked at her then, over the bar, and she held his gaze evenly, daring him to contradict her. He returned the gaze just as directly and his eyes almost seemed to be laughing at her.

"Yes," he said smoothly. "Well, I remember being on the wrong end of your bat-bogey hex a time or two, my dear." She should have known she wouldn't be able to wrong-foot him so easily.

Betsy's eyes lit up. "Old enemies, then. How romantic! So how did you come to fall in love?"

Ginny's eyes sparkled at Draco over the rim of her glass. "I think it's safe to say," she replied, "that Draco found he _couldn't live_ without me. I think his exact words were, 'I'll die if you don't marry me'. So what was I to do? I couldn't have that on my conscience now, could I?"

They all, except for Draco, laughed.

"The way I remember it," he interrupted, "_you_ were the one who proposed to _me_. By owl post, if I'm not mistaken."

Ginny could not find an answer to this. It was too easy, this bantering with him; it could become uncomfortably... comfortable. She found herself groping to regain her train of thought. "Anyhow, we're married now and..." She forced a smile even as she lied. "And I've never been happier." Fortunately for her, Draco turned the conversation to something else then, and the others seemed willing to let the subject lie.

At dinner, Draco sat at the head of the table, and Ginny sat at the foot. It was, she soon realised, the perfect position for her to accidentally catch his eye every time she looked up from her plate. She tried not to look up too often, but she couldn't help herself. More often than not, his eyes were already on her, and she would feel the colour flood into her face, without knowing quite why it should.

Betsy was seated on her left, and she had something to say on nearly every subject that came up throughout the course of the meal. Normally, Ginny despised garrulous women; they were inevitably stupid and full of themselves, but by the time they had finished their salmon and had moved on to the roast beef, she found herself actually enjoying Betsy Kincaid. She had an opinion about everything, but though she was shrewd, she was also kind, and Ginny could not fault anything she said as being catty or narrow or mean. It was not what she would have expected from a friend of Draco.

David Gordon was on her right, and though he was quiet, he seemed intelligent and well-spoken. He was particularly attentive to his wife, almost anticipating what she wanted before she asked. At one point, when he refilled her water goblet, Fiona gave him a quiet smile that was filled with something so tender it made Ginny ache to watch it. She shook herself. She'd had far more wine than was good for her. Purposefully, she turned her attention back to Betsy, who was holding forth about something her mother had said last week, which made everyone laugh except for Ginny, who hadn't heard a word of it.

She glanced through her lashes at Draco. He was watching her knowingly. She flushed again, wondering what he was thinking. She knew she wasn't exactly scintillating company tonight. Was he regretting asking her to do this? She chided herself for not adding more life to the party, and resolved to overcome her nerves and pull out all the stops for the rest of the evening. She drained her wine glass and flashed Draco her most brilliant smile.

She enjoyed the evening more than she'd ever imagined she would, and when they saw their guests into the Apparation Port, long after midnight, she was truly sorry to see them go. She listened for the four telltale 'cracks' that indicated they had gone, and then collapsed into a chair and looked up at Draco.

He said nothing, only folded his arms and looked down at her with an inscrutable expression.

"Well?" she said, at last. "Do you think it was a success?"

For a long moment, he was silent: only looked at her until she began to be uncomfortable.

"What?" she said, defensively.

"Come into the library, and have a drink with me," was all he said.

"All... all right." She got up and followed him into the library, suddenly uncertain of herself. She _thought_ the evening had gone well. Had she made some crude mistake? Embarrassed him in some way? Or was it the kiss that had him bothered? Well, she could hardly help it; _he_ was the one who had started that.

He poured her a brandy, and one for himself, and brought them over to the fire that was burning low in the fireplace. He indicated that she should sit, and handed her the drink. Automatically, she took it from him. Smoke and Ginger jumped lightly into her lap, and she stroked them, feeling oddly relieved that their little bodies were between the two of them.

He did not look directly at her, but recapped the bottle, then went to lean on the mantelpiece, where he stared pensively into the fire. He was so hard to read. Was he displeased with the evening? She thought it had gone swimmingly, herself. His friends, completely contrary to her expectations, were nice people. Moreover, they were intelligent and appeared to be sincere. Once she'd gotten over her nerves, she had enjoyed herself very much.

As if nearly reading her thoughts, Draco spoke. "Did you enjoy yourself, then?"

"Yes, I did. I didn't expect to – I'll be honest with you about that – but your friends were... a pleasant surprise. Just like you said they'd be." She spoke carefully, choosing her words. "I liked Betsy and Fiona very much, and their husbands seem like... like decent men."

He continued to gaze into the fire, swirling the brandy around in his glass. Almost absently, he said, "Yes, they are. Very decent men."

The clock ticked in the silence, and Ginny sipped at her brandy, letting the warmth of it begin to lull her into sleepiness. Idly, she wondered what in the world Draco Malfoy would know about what made a decent man.

He swallowed the last of his drink and seemed to shake himself from his reverie. He turned to look at her. "Thank you for doing this." His grey eyes were remote, shielded from her. His posture was stiff and removed. It always seemed to cost him something to be grateful to her.

"Draco," she said, exasperated. "It was nothing. I was happy to do it, and I enjoyed your friends. Besides," she added, half-joking, "I got a new robe out of the evening, didn't I?"

For an instant, he looked startled, and then the shield went up over his eyes again. "No," he said. "Tonight went above and beyond the call of duty. You could have been rude to my friends, but you made them feel welcome, and I thank you." After an awkward pause, he added stiffly, "And your new robes suit you. You look... very nice."

Ginny didn't exactly roll her eyes, but she felt like doing it. What would it cost him to be generous with a compliment? But before she had time to formulate a reply, he had left the library, closing the door softly behind him.

Draco's mind was in upheaval as he undressed. On the one hand, he was relieved and pleased at how well the evening had gone. It had been far beyond his best expectations, actually. He had to give Ginny credit: she had given his friends a fair shake, and she had genuinely seemed to enjoy them. They, in their turn, had seemed to like her. She had been gracious and entertaining, and... and damn, she had looked good in those robes that clung to her breasts and hips and turned her hair a warm, deep russet colour in the candlelight... He moved restlessly.

He lay down on his bed and closed his eyes. She had _looked_ at him that way, across the table... A way that made him flush with sudden, unexpected heat so that he had almost dropped his knife. There were secrets in her eyes, and he was seized by a need to know what they were. She should not have secrets from him, he thought, although he had them from her. She should _not_ because... well, because she was just an old enemy who had been thrust upon him, and he wanted the boundary lines between them to remain firm and clearly drawn, as they always had been. He did not want to become pulled into her deep eyes, entangled in her brilliant hair, and forget who he was, and who _she_ was. It did not help anything when she looked at him the way she had tonight.

He fell asleep replaying in his mind the image of her in her green robes, her hair woven into some complicated kind of plait, the firelight playing over the line of her jaw, where a few loose curls brushed her skin and made his fingers itch to reach out and touch them.


	11. Chapter 11

_**A/N**: This chapter is a bit shorter than the others, and I apologise, but I hope the content will shed some light on the rest of the story. Don't worry; Ginny will be back in the next one. Thanks to my sister **Gracie**, who wrote part of this chapter for me as an un-birthday present; to **Gabriele**, who generously volunteers his time so this story will be readable to you all; and to all of you who have overwhelmed me with your wonderful, wonderful reviews._

**Chapter 11**

_"Halloo in there! Halloo!" Someone was shaking him by the shoulder; a voice was calling to him and slowly, reluctantly, he drifted toward it. The voice had no business pulling him out of the blackness when he was so very comfortable – when he had, at last, found rest – right where he was._

_"Halloo! Wake up now, there's a good lad." He opened his eyes a fraction of a crack. There was light, and blurred shapes, and his head hurt. He groaned._

_"Aye, it's time ye came to now. Open up yer eyes."_

_He reached up two hands that felt weighted with lead, and rubbed at his eyes. He blinked again, and his vision cleared. He was in a small room, lying on a narrow bed. A rough, homespun blanket covered him. A man sat on the chair beside the bed. He wore the clothes of a Muggle and though he appeared to be younger than Father, his hair above a ruddy, unlined face, was completely white._

_"Where am I?" He forced the words from cracked lips and a parched throat. "Who are you?"_

_The man raised his eyebrows. "Do ye not know who I am?"_

_He closed his eyes, thinking only, 'water'._

_"And do ye not recollect how ye came to be here?"_

_He groaned, and tried to make his mind reach back into the misty horrors of his last memories, but all he could recall were wisps of screams and of hot, red light._

_The man spoke again. "Ye killed my son, boy. Can ye not remember that?"_

_He opened his eyes and stared at the man, sure in one breath that he had heard him wrong and just as certain in the next that the man spoke the truth. Enough jumbled scraps of memory, garbled sounds and indistinct images vied in the reaches of his mind for him to know instinctively, that that thing the man had said was going to turn out to be sickeningly, horrifyingly true._

_The Muggle stooped over him then, and he shrank back, but the man only slid an arm beneath his shoulders and lifted his head. The man pressed a glass of water against his mouth._

_"Aye boy, ye killed me own son. Ye took his life, and now I've saved yours. That's a blood debt you owe me. I've bought your soul, son, and that's a fact."_

_He tipped the glass, and Draco drank._

Fiona Gordon was awakened by a flash of green from the fireplace in her bedroom.

"Oh, not _again_," she groaned into her pillow. The clock on her bedside table read 3.50 a.m.: they had been in bed just three hours. She rolled over and squinted at the fireplace. There was no one there, only the flames, flickering weird and green and empty, as usual.

"David." There was no reply. She reached under the covers and slipped her hand beneath her husband's pyjama shirt. Gently, she rubbed his bare back. "David," she said more loudly.

"Mmph." He stirred, but did not come awake.

"David!" She raised herself up on her elbows, fully awake herself, now, and leaned over him, burying her face in the curve of his neck. "Wake up, sweetheart."

Her husband opened one eye. "What is it?"

"Floo call for you. Come on, wake up."

He groaned. "This makes the third time this week!"

"You can always say no."

He rolled onto his back and shielded his eyes against the green firelight, with his forearm. He sighed. "No, I can't."

"You mean you _won't_."

He made a low, frustrated noise in his throat. "Doesn't it amount to the same thing?" He groped for his glasses on the bedside table, and rubbing the sleep from his eyes, put them on and sat up.

"Poor, poor David," Fiona said, stroking his back. "Can I do anything?"

He leaned over and kissed her lingeringly on the cheek. "Just keep the home fires burning, for when I get back."

"I'll be here."

He pulled her against him and nuzzled her neck, letting go only reluctantly. "I count on it."

"I love you, you know."

"Yes, I count on that too." With another sigh, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and reached for his clothes. When he had dressed, he took a pinch of Floo powder from the teak box on the mantle and looked back at Fiona, who was sitting up in bed, watching him. She blew him a kiss, and fluttered her fingers at him.

"Be careful."

"I will." He threw in the powder, and stepped into the flames. "Headquarters," he said, and was gone.

Fiona sat back against the pillows. It was no good trying to think about going back to sleep now that she was good and wide awake. Anyway, she half-expected that Betsy would be along shortly. She got up, and pulling her housecoat around her shoulders, made her way down to the kitchen to make a pot of tea.

Sure enough, the water was nearly at the boil, and she was just taking it off the hob when the kitchen fireplace flared green and Betsy stepped out, brushing ash from her own housecoat.

Fiona smiled at her sister and held up the teapot. "I thought you'd be along. Tea?"

"Yes thanks, and some toast, if you've got it." Fiona had it. "This makes _three times_ this week," Betsy said, sliding into a chair at the scrubbed oak table. "It's getting so Lowen doesn't remember what a good night's sleep is anymore."

"Aye," Fiona said. "David was saying something like that himself. Still, would you have them do any differently?" Neither of them would, and they both knew it.

They sipped their tea in silence. Then, "How long do you think they'll be gone this time?"

"They'll be home when they're home, I suppose."

"Should we call Ginny, do you think? So she won't be all alone?"

Fiona looked at her sister, puzzled. "What; did Lowen not tell you? Ginny doesn't know."

"Doesn't know..." Betsy put down her teacup with a clatter. "How can she not _know_?"

Fiona shrugged. "Draco hasn't told her. He must have his reasons."

"But... where does she suppose he disappears to, all those times he's called away?"

"Who knows what excuse he gives her? It's not really our business though, is it?"

Betsy frowned at her sister. "Well, yes, I think it is very _much_ our business."

"No," Fiona said firmly, "it isn't. Stay out of it, Betsy Kincaid. Draco will tell Ginny when he's ready."

Betsy leaned forward earnestly. "Tell me, Fiona, did you like her? I liked her!"

"Aye, I did. Very much."

"I think she's going to be good for him."

"Do you now? How so?"

"Well..." Betsy considered. "Draco's always been proud. A mite _too_ sure of himself. Cocky, you might say. But tonight, he seemed – oh, I don't know..."

"A bit softer around the edges?"

"Right! I couldn't put my finger on what it was, but you've hit on it. He couldn't keep his eyes off her, could he?"

Fiona chuckled. "No, he couldn't, and that's a fact. But I daresay she'll keep him on his toes."

"Well, that's not a bad thing." Betsy helped herself to another cup of tea. "But are they happily married, do you think?"

Fiona did not answer right away. At last, she said slowly, "I don't know if Draco knows what it _is_ to be truly happy. He certainly seemed more _content_ than I've ever seen him, though."

"And Ginny? Did she seem happy, to you?"

Fiona shook her head regretfully. "I wish I could say she did. Perhaps I'm wrong – and I hope I am – but I sense there's something... restless in her. It makes me very sorry, too, because I like her and I'd like to see the two of them succeed together."

Betsy looked at her sister archly. "Aye, because if Draco's happy at home, perhaps he'll put his foot down about all these midnight outings..."

"...and _we'll_ get to spend a full night with our husbands once in a while!" Fiona smiled. "Well anyhow, I felt last night that I should like to do something to cheer Ginny up a bit. What do you say we pay her a visit tomorrow?" She glanced at the clock, which showed that it was nearly four-thirty in the morning. "Or, I should say _today_, rather."

"Oh yes! I'd like to see her again. I felt, that given half a chance, we really could be good friends." Betsy yawned hugely. "Floo me when you're ready, but _please_ not before noon. Come to think of it, any time before two o'clock would be positively obscene." She stood and stretched luxuriously. "Well, thanks for the snack. I'm for bed."

Fiona smiled and gave a little wave as Betsy stepped back into the fireplace. "Sweet dreams."

"You too."

Fiona went back to bed, and slept until nearly eleven, half-conscious always, of David's empty spot beside her.

John Dalby couldn't take it anymore, couldn't _take_ it. Bloody McAlistair and his damned inquisitorial squad, always ferreting about for _information_, always snooping, always gloating about how they were _better_ than he was...   
The rusty little car bounced over the rutted back roads, radio burping out a sad rendition of an American pop song that was alien to him. The man driving pressed his foot suddenly to the floor and the car leapt forward with an alarming whine of the motor. A lorry trundling toward him on the road swerved sharply, just missing him.

_The train streaked across the countryside, barely visible behind a grey sheet of rain. Inside, the late shift commuters dozed under their newspapers or chatted companionably, linked by the familiarity of years of travel together. Mrs Armstrong, a comfortable matron who supervised the cleaning staff at the local rest home was sharing a complicated knitting pattern with Mrs Gardner, a kindly busybody who superintended the evening shift of nurses at London's biggest hospital. Behind them, ancient Major Dunhill, long retired, and riding the train as always for lack of anything better to do, was showering a young, fresh-faced recruit home on leave with improbable stories of his own military adventures._

He'd been the first one they'd looked at when money had gone missing, and he hated them for it. Asses. College-educated, pretty-boy jackasses, the lot of them. They'd looked down on him from the day he'd hired on as an apprentice draftsmen at the highbrow London civil engineering firm. And why? Why! Because he didn't speak like they did, because his clothes and his accent, and the cheap lunches he brought to work still showed his roots of poverty even after all these years of scrabbling and scrapping his way upward, that's why.

_"Jem! How's yer wife, then?" The street sweeper hailed the shopkeeper, who kept impossible hours, across the car, and received a friendly wave in return.   
"She's a fair sight better now that they're done mucking about with the radiation and all. Got up and did a bit o' cookin 'this weekend, she did!"   
The sweeper made a fist of victory, and the shopkeeper answered it with a fist of his own, and a little crow. They'd been travelling together for ten years, and the barriers had long ago come down._

The man sniffed and choked on a sob, wiping his nose on his sleeve as the car careened around a corner, approaching the edge of a town.   
Being raised poor wasn't a crime, he thought viciously, and took another long pull at the bottle in his lap. Even when you had an old man who beat his children without mercy, the way his old man had done. It wasn't a crime.   
And three years ago, he had discovered the white stuff; the lovely, white powder that stung your nose, and made you forget, made you rise above it all until you were king of everything for awhile. It was... it was beautiful, it was something to make men gods, and it was all there was for him anymore.

_"Now really, Rodgers," the engineer was saying firmly to the conductor, who'd brought him up a cup of tea and a plate of biscuits as he'd long ago taken to doing at this point in their journey, "I can't agree with you there. You can speak of logic all you want, but me mum believed in ghosts, and me grandmum wi 'her, and after all the stories I've bin raised on, well..." he paused to chase a piece of Rodger's wife's excellent shortbread with a swallow of tea. "Well, I've been disposed all me life to believe that there's witches and haunts abroad, and good and evil spirits doin ' their best to make theirselves felt too. Ye can't convince me no difference, and there's a fact. Why just last week McGarry was tellin 'me..."_

The car didn't pause for the traffic light, just blew through it, as the driver tossed back another fiery swallow from the bottle. 'Come on, coppers. Try it, I'm begging you!'   
He turned the radio up and leaned into the glove box, fishing out a small, plastic bag, white with residue. He plucked at it, whimpering a little. Ahead of him, a railroad crossing arm came slowly down, lights flashing, bells clanging their warning.

_"Annie, wake up dear! Let's just run back to the loo for a moment, shall we? Then we won't have to rush when the train pulls in to station." The girl speaking was sleepy herself, and clearly too young to be a mother, but was trying her best to be responsible.   
"All right then," the child scrubbed the sleep from her eyes and looked around a trifle crossly. "Where's Mummy? She said we'd see her before midnight."   
"Only another little while, dear. She and Da' are probably waiting with the boys right now. We want to look our nicest for them though, don't we?"   
"I can't wait to show them Buster, Maya! Don't you think they'll be pleased?"   
The older girl eyed the string-tied box at her feet doubtfully. The sounds of contented snoring issued gently from numerous holes in the top and sides. She wasn't at all sure their family would be pleased by the unexpected addition of a very rambunctious mongrel puppy to their ordered home, but couldn't bring herself to say so. "Well, they won't be able to deny that he's got personality, Annie. And when we call him a souvenir from cousin Daniela, they'll probably be very accepting of him. I hope. Come, let's find the loo."_

He turned the bag inside out, sucking at the spoonful of powder left in it, licking it clean when he was done. Within thirty seconds his mind had disconnected even further, his muscles flowing together, sticky, like butterscotch, and a jolt of pure, sexual energy burned through him, and he knew that he could fly.   
It cost more in a month than a bloke like him earned in a year. He pulled hard at the bottle again, washing it all down, hating the bastards who had brought him to this point.   
And now they had what they were looking for. _Evidence_, they called it. Evidence that allowed them to sneer and gloat and whisper behind their hands, and the damned police were waiting at his apartment at this very moment. If he went back there, his life was worse than over.

_Inside the cars, the passengers heard the warning whistle, and began to stir themselves, gathering their bags and papers about them. Outside, the rain streamed from the windows. Supper was long over, but warmly-lit houses awaited most of them, and loved ones had pots of tea simmering for them on the backs of stoves._

The little car slowed just enough to swerve around the first crossing arm. It paused, then jerked forward again, sharply and to the left, taking off half of the second crossing arm with a splintering crash. It seemed to hop sideways, sputtered a time or two, and came to rest crookedly on the tracks themselves. Behind it and before it, the bells clanged in rhythmic warning.   
He knew what they did to a chap in prison, he'd heard the stories. Well. There were some things worse than death, and he wouldn't give himself over to a life like that, not in a million years.

_The train whistle blasted again, and the conductor began to make his way back through the cars, announcing the station._

In a manor bedroom in the Scottish Cairngorms, the fire flared suddenly green, and Draco Malfoy awoke with a start.

Damn it all to hell. It was the most miserable kind of night possible, outside of an outright blizzard, which might be drier, come to think of it. Rain was sheeting down, the temperature hovered just above freezing, and a malicious wind blew down from the mountains, creeping under scarves and hoods as if they weren't there. Draco shuddered, and pulled his woollen cloak tighter about him, wondering where the others were. Off to his left he thought he heard Lowen shout something, and from ahead he heard the Commander's voice, but there was no distinguishing words in this weather. He tapped his ear three times and murmured, _"Audio."_

Instantly, words filled his head.

_"Gordon, cut across this way! 'is car is wedged on the bleedin 'tracks, I can't shift it!"_

To his right the shriek of the train's whistle filled his ears, and everything seemed to slow down, and to focus in on one spot ahead of him.

Draco sprinted forward. He caught his leader's eye and waved his arm. Through the sheeting rain, the Commander nodded his acknowledgement, and Draco turned to face the train tracks. From somewhere behind him, he heard Kincaid giving the order for a Levitating Spell. He knew these men. There was no need for discussion now, not after all of these times. They were removing the car. He would stop the train.

Tomorrow, _Witch Weekly_ and the _Daily Prophet_ would report in glorious, romanticised terms that Quicksilver had done it once again, and for another day the world would speculate about the larger-than-life superhuman they had built up in their minds: about the myth that was so much smaller than the reality.

Draco stepped directly into the path of the deadly missile, and grimaced against the blinding rain. There was not a shred of glamour or romance in the things Quicksilver did, but there _was_ glory in it. There was the glory of being a part of something larger than one man alone, of knowing that together, you were so much greater than the sum of your parts.

The train thundered closer. Behind him he heard the three wizards shouting in carefully matched tones: _"Three... Two... One... Wingardium Leviosa!"_ They allowed no room for panic, and he felt a surge of pride for them all. His own wand was out in an instant, and his feet came to rest on the old cross ties, fitting neatly just inside the steel rails that vibrated with the train's approach.

He focused his wand carefully on the single headlamp, taking his time, willing his nerves into submission so they would obey him, and not the other way around. He took a deep, steadying breath and with all the magical force he possessed, roared, "_Impedimenta!_"

The train instantly began to grind to a halt, but its own weight and momentum carried it forward still, at an impossible rate. He held his wand steady, leaning into the counterforce of the train so hard the veins on his forearms stood out, pushing back with his magic until sweat broke out under his robes and mingled with the rain streaming down his face and neck.

It filled his vision now, smoke and steel, and the thunder of its wheels screaming at him: thirty feet, twenty, ten away. The heat of it billowed around him, sparks flew off his face, leaving almost invisible burn marks behind them. He sucked in another deep breath.

_"IMPEDIMENTA MAXIMA!"_

The passengers would all complain of whiplash tomorrow, but the train was shrieking and grinding to a halt, fountains of sparks raining from its wheels into the night around him, and he could reach out and touch it with a finger if he liked.

He did, grinning to himself with a sense of triumph that far outmatched anything he'd ever experienced on the Quidditch pitch at school, or in the war afterward.

And then, on the tracks, in the dark and the rain, a face suddenly filled his mind: freckled, and framed with red hair and sage-green robes, smiling sleepily up at him, a pair of kneazle kits in her arms. It was so startlingly unexpected that he stumbled back a little, gasping, and found himself in the arms of Arthur Weasley himself, who was at that moment leaning up against a sorry little car around which Muggle policemen were swarming.

"Well done, son, well done!"

Arthur's enthusiasm seemed to be contagious, for around him Lowen and David were clapping each other on their backs and knocking their heads together like a couple of Muggle rugby players. A man in uniform turned to them gravely. "You'll need to step over here, gentlemen, and the Inspector'll get a statement from you both."

Draco righted himself, and looked at Arthur, who as usual, looked as if he'd been put together as an afterthought. "Right!" Arthur told the man cheerfully. "Just give me a moment to find my spectacles on the tracks. I know they're here somewhere!"

The officer nodded perfunctorily, and Arthur pulled Draco nose down to the tracks with him. "Capital bit of work, Malfoy! To Quicksilver!"

Draco nodded brusquely, and fumbled his wand back out of his pocket, touching it to the end of Arthur's. A silver arc flashed across the sky. They looked toward the place across the tracks where Lowen and David were touching wands and Disapparating from under an identical silver arc, at a point behind some bushes.

Behind them, they heard an officer calling. "'ey you, Mister! Wiv the red 'air! Oive got summat ter ask ya. C'mere a sec!"

Arthur winked broadly at Draco, and they stood together, wands extended, long practice asserting itself as they cried in unison, "_Confundus! Disapperecium!_"

Five minutes later, the sergeant on scene rubbed his eyes vigorously against the rain and snapped at the newspaper photographer. "I don't care if you call it a damned eclipse, or a UFO invasion. Whatever that flash of light was, it stopped the train all right, and the car is off the tracks. We'll figure out the rest at daylight. Meanwhile, take yer crews and get out before I have the lot of ya cited fer trespass!"

The photographer and news crew protested loudly.

On the nearest rail, the sign of Mercury's wings glowed softly, awaiting discovery.


	12. Chapter 12

_**A/N:** Thanks to all of you who have reviewed with such enthusiasm, and who are still with me, although I've been away for awhile. Just a reminder: we saw in Chapter 11 that Draco once killed a Muggle boy. The boy's father saved Draco, thus "buying his life". The idea is not original with me; it comes from **"Victor Hugo's Les Miserables"**, and before that, from the Christian doctrine of redemption._

_A million thanks to my beta, **Lina**, who is Greek, and helped me better understand Crete and its climate. Any mistakes are mine, not hers._

_Thank you to **Gabriele**, for his formatting work._

**Chapter 12**

Ginny was planting daffodils.

The brilliance of October had faded to a wet and sullen November, and as the weather deteriorated, she found herself restless and moody. She was increasingly snappish with people at work, and Myra, her friend from the office, finally brought her up short on it.

"What's gotten into you, Ginny? I asked you a simple question about your weekend plans, and you've nearly bitten my head off. What gives?"

It didn't help that they were eating lunch at the same pub where Ted had taken her on their first date, nor did it help that Ted was, at that very moment, having lunch with the little blonde Junior Assistant from Magical Games and Sports in a quiet corner of the pub. He hadn't noticed Ginny, for which she was profoundly grateful, but she could see him from where she sat and it put her on edge.

She sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "I'm sorry, Myra. I'm just... I know I'm grouchy these days. I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm sorry to be so uncivil."

Her friend considered her with concern. "Maybe you need a holiday. You didn't have one last summer. Why don't you look into a cruise, or something? I'm sure it would do you good."

She smiled weakly. "Yes, I'm sure you're right. A cruise is exactly what I need. I should look into it."

Myra was satisfied, but Ginny was not. In truth, a holiday was the last thing she wanted. A holiday would give her too much time to think. Too much time to feel bereft and aimless and lonely... The truth was, she was homesick.

She lay in bed that night and thought about her family. At The Burrow, Molly would be cleaning out the flower beds: cutting back the dry canes of the summer flowers and putting in new bulbs for spring. It was funny how a person's train of thought ran, late at night when defences were down, in that twilight place between waking and sleep. Putting the garden to bed, Ginny thought, had always given her something to look forward to in the spring. You planted bulbs in good faith; winter would come and everything would be cold and dead for awhile, but in the end, everything would thaw and the flowers would come up. You couldn't stop spring in a garden.

Here at Four Winds, she had nothing to look forward to. There was just herself, and Draco, and Lolly, and they all lived their separate lives, worlds apart from each other, and in nine months or so it would be over and done with, a part of the past that would be best forgotten. There was no future for her here.

But a tiny part of her rebelled at living a life, even for a short time, with no future to it. So she stopped by a nursery one night after work and bought a basketful of bulbs: tulips and daffodils and hyacinths and narcissi. And she spent a Saturday planting them on the south side of the house. Draco had a professional gardener who had long come and gone from cleaning out the beds and wrapping the young hedges in burlap against the coming winter. Ginny ignored these beds and dug her own; a simple oblong on the sunny side of the chimney where she planted her bulbs. They would bloom in April, when she would still be here to see them come up.

She was nearly done when she heard footsteps behind her. She turned and saw Draco approaching, just home apparently, from wherever it was he had disappeared to this morning.

She sat back on her heels. "Oh, hello."

"Hello yourself. What are you mucking about in all that dirt for?"

"I'm planting flowers."

He came to stand above her and though the afternoon was beginning to subside into evening, she had to shade her eyes to see him when she looked up. "You don't have to bother," he said. "We have a gardener for that sort of thing, you know."

"I know. I'm doing it because I want to; I like flowers."

He regarded her as though she were a sort of curiosity. "You 'like flowers'?"

"Yes, I do. I always worked in the garden when I lived at home, and I find it very restful."

"I see." After a moment, he crouched beside her and looked at the rectangle of freshly-turned earth. "Well, what did you plant, then?"

She pointed. "Back here will be tulips, sort of in a row alongside the house. They'll bloom first, red and yellow ones. Then here I've staggered clusters of yellow daffodils and paper-white narcissi. In the spring, when it's warm enough, I'll plant some other flowers among them: pansies and Sweet Williams, and that kind of thing. I was just finishing up with grape hyacinths along the front border."

He picked up a cluster of pea-sized bulbs. "These?"

"Yes. Hand me one, will you?" He did, and she dropped it into the indentation she had made, patting the dirt carefully over it with her fingers. Next to it, she hollowed out another little hole and silently held out her hand to him. He dropped another cluster of the bulbs into it, and she planted it. They worked their way down the row like this, and when it was half-done, Ginny said, "You could start watering those that we just put in."

Draco pulled out his wand and carefully directed a sprinkling of water onto the row they had just planted. Ginny watched him, amused by his air of dedicated concentration. When he had caught up to her she said, "You did that very well." She thought he looked pleased.

"I didn't take all those years of Herbology for nothing, you know. When will they come up?"

"April, I should imagine, though it's so infernally cold and dark here, who knows? It could be July before we see a sign of them." She held out her hand and he put another cluster of bulbs into it.

"Do the cold and the dark bother you?" he asked.

She considered this. "Not really. Well, the dark maybe. Winter must last a lot longer here than it does in London."

He shrugged. "You get used to it."

She dropped the last bulb into the ground and covered it over. "There. That should just about do it. Water these?" He did, and she began to gather her things. He bent and picked up the spade and the edger, leaving her the basket of hand tools. In silence, they walked to the little gardening shed behind the house and stowed the tools on their hanging pegs and washed their hands in the little corner sink.

"Thank you for your help."

"Not at all. I was happy to do it." He seemed to hesitate then asked, "What are you going to do now?"

Ginny glanced at her watch. "It's early yet for dinner. I think I'll take a walk; we won't have many more nice afternoons before the snow flies."

"If you don't mind the company, I'll show you a place I like."

Ginny was surprised to find that she _didn't_ mind. He was being very... nice today, and she found herself thinking that if he could only stay like this all the time, then they might actually manage to be friends. "All right," she said.

He held the door open for her, and she went out. "This way." He led her around behind the gardening shed to a path she had never noticed before. They followed it into the gloom of the forest, where it soon narrowed and grew steeper, and rocky, as it began to climb the fell side. After fifteen minutes' hard going, Draco stopped. He gestured before him, toward a stand of spruce trees. Beyond them, Ginny could hear the sound of running water. She looked at him questioningly. "After you," he said, looking as though he were enjoying some sort of secret. She hoped he wasn't planning to do anything horrible to her.

Ginny pushed her way through the spruce boughs, and gasped in sheer delight. She was standing in a little, grassy clearing at the foot of a waterfall. It poured in a slender, silvery-white cascade from the side of the mountain somewhere high above them and crashed into a little pool at the far edge of the clearing. It was the loveliest thing she had ever seen.

Draco pushed out of the forest and came to stand beside her. "Well?" he demanded. "What do you think?"

She smiled at him, touched that he should think to show it to her. She wouldn't have thought him the type to appreciate something like this. "I think it's enchanting," she told him honestly. "How did you know it was here?"

"I saw it from the air one day, when I was flying. I don't think anyone else knows about it."

"Does it have a name?"

"Not that I know of. Should it?"

"Oh, I think so. Lovely places like this should be called _something_."

"Then you'd better name it." He looked down at her, clearly pleased with himself, and looking quite indulgent. There was no trace of his usual arrogance and irritability, and Ginny thought, unexpectedly, that she could almost _like_ him, this way.

"Thank you," she told him. "I will, once I've thought about it. Does it freeze up in the winter?"

"I couldn't tell you; I only discovered it last spring."

They sat on a fallen log, far enough from the falls to avoid the spray and talk without having to shout. For a long time though, they did not say anything, but only watched the waterfall tumbling through the air and throwing up little rainbows all around the pool. It was a comfortable silence, Ginny thought, unlike most of their silences had been up until now. She felt that, along the way, something had shifted subtly between them, and thought that maybe, at last, they were settling into some sort of truce. She wondered if he felt it too. The absence of his usual rancour gave her courage.

"Draco," she said, broaching a subject that had been on her mind for some time now, "what do you do for work? You've never told me."

"You've never asked."

She shot him a sideways glance. "No, I've always been too frightened of you to ask."

He turned to stare at her. "_Frightened_ of me? Why the hell should you be frightened of me?" He spoke as though the very idea were appalling, but there was something behind his eyes that might have been a smirk.

"Oh come off it! You're bad-tempered, and you've always hated me." Ginny smiled a little, to take the sting out of the words. "I think you _like_ frightening people. I think sometimes you do it on purpose."

"I am _not_ bad-tempered!" he said, offended. "And besides," he added, more reasonably, "you've always hated me too."

"Well, you have to admit you can be moody and sarcastic. It's very off-putting."

"Nonsense. That's all in your imagination; I'm a very sweet and sanguine person."

She snorted, and he quirked his mouth wryly. "At any rate," she said, "are you going to tell me what you do all day, when you're away from home?"

He picked up a dry leaf and crumbled it between his fingers. "Oh," he said lightly, "most often, I'm busy saving the world, one person at a time."

She shot him an arch look. "Very funny."

"Well," he amended, "actually, I own vineyards. And I manage my estates."

"Vineyards? Where?"

"I have one in Greece, and two in Australia."

"_Really_." Ginny found the idea fascinating. "I've never seen a vineyard. Can I see yours someday?"

He seemed surprised by this. "You can if you like, though I can't imagine it would be very interesting for you." He was silent for a few moments, thinking. Then he said, "I have a small villa on Crete. We could go there some weekend and I could show you around the vineyard then."

"_Crete!_ I've never been there. Could we go this weekend?"

He looked amused by her enthusiasm. "If you like."

"Oh yes, I'd love it! It must be very sunny and warm there right now."

"Well, it's warmer and sunnier than Scotland, at any rate."

"Warm enough to go swimming?"

"I don't know about the sea, but there's a heated pool at Journey's End so you can swim in any case."

"Oh, I can't wait!"

"I think you'll have to; it's a whole week away." He looked at his watch. "We'd better be getting back now; Lolly will wonder where we've gone to."

That night, he sat in his chair by the fire and watched her covertly. She was reading, and he too held a book, of which he occasionally turned a page, though his eyes were not even remotely focused on the words. Instead, he was thinking about the day. He had spent most of it in Australia, at the larger of his two vineyards there. It had been an ordinary day; nothing had gone terribly wrong, though nothing had gone particularly right about it either. What struck him about it was the odd restlessness he'd felt since he'd left Four Winds that morning. No sooner had he left than he'd wanted to be back home again. When, at last, he'd found himself in his own Apparition Port, he'd gone straight to the library. It was empty, and with his disappointment came the realisation that it was _her_ he had been looking for.

Lolly had told him where she was, and he went in search of her. She'd been... planting _flowers_, of all things. He thought of how she'd squinted up at him, looking pink and windblown and happy, her fingernails quite filthy from digging around without gardening gloves. It was at that moment he felt he'd really come home.

She'd been so pleased with the waterfall; 'enchanting', she'd called it. And she was so childishly delighted at the prospect of going to Crete and seeing the vineyard. He didn't imagine she'd ever travelled much; likely her family hadn't had the money for it. Her exuberance over it had... how had it made him feel? It had made him feel as though he wanted to keep on giving her things, keep on surprising her: enchanting her. He'd never wanted to do that for anyone before.

Next weekend, they would be in Crete together. Suddenly, the week in between now and then seemed to stretch ahead of him like an entire month. He stared, unseeing, at the page of his book and wondered what kind of madness was overtaking him. Whatever it was, he couldn't stop himself smiling about it.

When they stepped out of the Apparition Port at Journey's End the next weekend, Draco watched Ginny a trifle anxiously. It was a small villa, much smaller than Four Winds, and had more of a cottagey feel to it. He hoped she wouldn't be disappointed. Ginny, however, investigated it all with an air of complete infatuation.

"It's lovely," she pronounced, when they'd finished a tour of the place. "So bright and airy. Oh, it's just what I needed in the middle of November!" And she collapsed, arms outstretched, into a pile of blue and white pillows on the sofa.

She liked the place. More than that, she seemed really pleased with it; he felt light with relief. "What do you want to do first?" he asked her. "I thought we'd save the vineyard for tomorrow – get an early start, you know – but we could go down to the village and look around the shops, or you could have that swim you wanted."

"Let's do both," she said, sitting up. "We could go to the village – what's it called again?"

"Xenia."

"Xenia. I can go swimming afterward. Can you give me five minutes? I just want to brush my hair and put on a jumper: it's cooler here than I thought it would be."

While she was in her bedroom, Draco changed too, discarding his robes in favour of a cashmere jumper and khaki trousers with a leather jacket. He looked himself over critically in the full-length mirror in the corner. He nearly always wore robes; they lent him an air of reserve that served to keep other people at arm's length, which was usually right where he wanted them. Somehow though, he didn't think robes would be right for showing Ginny around the village on, what was for her, a holiday. She was so informal and spontaneous; he didn't want to look like some sombre old clergyman walking next to her.

They came out of their rooms at the same moment and met in the corridor. "Don't you look nice! " Ginny exclaimed. "I don't think I've ever seen you in anything but robes before. This look suits you very well." She had put on a short jumper and jacket, and a tight pair of jeans that did something stunning for her hips. Draco couldn't stop his eyes from flickering over them, just for a moment. She saw him do it, and looked amused. He looked away, but felt his neck grow warm under her knowing smile.

The day was clear, and though there was an edge of autumn in the air the sun shone brilliantly from a cloudless blue sky. The tiny seaside village of Xenia was busy with tourists who had poured in from a cruise ship in the harbour: some were Muggles and some were obviously witches and wizards, but they seemed to accept the presence of each other without a second thought about the differences between them. They threaded their way along the crowded pavements, and Draco noticed that Ginny was squinting in the sunlight.

"We'd better get you some sunglasses," he said, "or you're going to wind up with a headache." They stopped at a kiosk that sold all sorts of touristy items: disposable cameras, and bottled water, and hats. Ginny examined the rack of sunglasses, then chose a pair and tried them on.

"What do you think?" she asked, turning towards him.

He studied her, and shook his head. "Too severe for you. Try these." He handed her another pair and she exchanged the first ones for them.

She looked at herself in the little mirror, and bit her lip. "I think they're too big." She handed them back and reached for a third pair. "What about you? Aren't you going to get some too?"

He had never bought sunglasses off a rack at a tourist stand in his life; his were always custom-made. He hesitated, but the sun really was aggravatingly bright, and he hadn't thought to bring his along. "I probably should," he said.

Ginny selected a pair and to his surprise, reached up and fitted them onto his face for him. It startled him, and reflexively, he drew back, but she merely cocked her head to the side, surveying the effect, and shook her head. "I don't think you should get the mirrored ones; I can't see your eyes, and it makes me wonder what you're thinking."

"You don't want to know what I'm thinking." He hadn't meant to say it out loud, but it was true; her hands had brushed his face when she'd put the sunglasses on him, and his pulse was pounding strangely from the contact.

"No, I'm sure it would frighten me if I knew, so I won't ask."

From behind the dark lenses, he studied her face. "Do I really frighten you, or were you just joking the other day?"

She laughed, and reaching up again, took the sunglasses from his face. "I'll tell you a secret, Draco; I haven't _really_ been frightened of you since I was fourteen."

He liked the sound of her laugh; he liked knowing he could make her do it. The irony of the realisation was not lost on him: as long as he'd known her, his objective had been to make her miserable. Now, he found himself enjoying her happiness more. He didn't try to analyze it too deeply: he was aware of a growing feeling in himself that was as close to peace as he'd ever come to experiencing. All he knew was that somehow Ginny Weasley was responsible for it, and he wasn't about to fight it.

They tried on pair after pair of sunglasses, studying themselves and each other until they each found a pair they could agree on. Draco paid the owner of the kiosk in Muggle money, and they moved on, looking in windows on one side of the pavement and examining sun catchers, fruit, and brightly-painted scarves in the merchant's booths on the other.

"Oh, look, Draco! Isn't that blue vase lovely?" Ginny said, stopping before the window of a little shop.

Draco peered into the window. It _was_ rather pretty. "Do you want to go in and look at it?"

"What for? I'm not going to buy it."

He shrugged. "So we'll just look."

She smiled. "All right then."

When they entered the shop a little bell over the doorway signalled their arrival. A shop-girl approached them and spoke in strongly-accented English. "Can I help you find something?" Ginny told her what she wanted. Carefully, the girl lifted the vase from the window display and handed it to her. It was a cobalt blue, blown-glass affair with red and yellow flowers painted on it, and Draco watched Ginny light up as she examined it. Really, she was like an open book; had she never been trained to conceal the things she felt? He wasn't sure if he admired this quality about her, or if it exasperated him.

"It's made by a local artisan." The girl turned it over and showed Ginny the mark on the bottom. "He never makes any two pieces alike."

Draco signalled discreetly to the girl, and she smiled in perfect understanding. She took the vase gently from Ginny's hands. "I'll just wrap it for you, shall I?" She moved away, to the back of the shop.

Ginny looked startled. She began to protest, but he shook his head. "It's out of your hands now, I'm afraid."

She stared at him, half-pleased, half-exasperated. "_Draco_," she said, "a vase like that must cost a bomb!"

"Yes it would, wouldn't it?" he said airily. "You heard the girl; the artist never makes any two alike." This was all new to her, this buying whatever you wanted without a second thought about the cost, and he couldn't resist showing off for her the littlest bit.

"Yes, but still –"

"Don't you want it? I can always tell her to put it back." He made a move as if to go after the shop-girl.

"No! I mean yes, I do want it."

"Then don't argue with me," he said firmly.

The smile she gave him made something go funny with his breathing.

The girl returned with the package just then, and he paid her, putting an end to any further discussion on the matter.

They window-shopped until the sun was high in the sky, and they began to feel hungry. Ginny stopped in front of an ice cream shop. "I'll buy you an ice cream before we go back."

"Ice cream! I don't think I've eaten ice cream since my Hogwarts days," he told her.

She turned to stare at him. "Not eaten ice cream in _nine years?_ I didn't think that was possible! Why ever not?"

He didn't know; he'd never thought about it. He supposed it was because ice cream seemed a frivolous thing and his life held little time for frivolity. Other than Betsy and Fiona, the women he knew always ate like birds in order to maintain themselves in varying degrees of stylish emaciation. He never would have dreamt of eating ice cream with any of them.

"Well we certainly can't let you go on in that state," Ginny said briskly. "It can't be good for you to go nine years without eating ice cream. Let me see..." She appraised him as shrewdly as Natty Toggs the tailor ever had. "I think... chocolate for you."

"Why chocolate?" he asked, amused.

"It suits you; it's dark and complex, mysterious yet classic."

"Am I all that?"

"Yes, I think you are."

He was ridiculously pleased with this assessment of himself, and submitted to the chocolate ice cream. She ordered vanilla for herself, and he protested that this did not suit her at all.

"What kind of ice cream do you think would suit me?" she asked.

"I don't know, something with a healthy dash of red pepper in it, I should think."

She swatted at him with her handbag. Draco laughed – an entirely spontaneous laugh, without malice or sarcasm – and it felt good. Strange, but good.

Lolly, who had come along for the weekend, had lunch ready for them when they got back to Journey's End. After that, Draco left Ginny to swim in the pool by herself while he went out to the vineyard to make arrangements with his manager for a private tour the following day. In the afternoon, they went to their separate rooms and napped, and then they ate supper on the veranda, overlooking a stretch of white beach where the Mediterranean unfurled itself, looking like some impossibly blue jewel held up to the light.

"Tell me about owning a vineyard," she said, when they were eating. "I don't know anything about it at all, and I'll have to have some sort of frame of reference when I see things tomorrow."

"What do you want to know?"

"Anything. Everything. Let's see... I know different wines are made from different grapes; that's about all I do know. What kind of grapes do you grow?"

He told her. She seemed genuinely interested in everything about the business, and asked endless questions, drawing him out and keeping him talking. Before he knew it, the light was fading from the air and a stiff, chilly breeze had begun to blow in off the sea.

Draco lounged back in his chair, feeling utterly lazy and content. "And now, I've talked long enough," he said. "If I tell you any more there won't be anything left for you to learn about tomorrow."

"It's all very fascinating," she said. "Thank you for the lesson." She rubbed her arms.

"Are you cold? You'd better put something on." Draco pulled out his wand, and pointed toward the house. "_Accio_ jacket." His own leather jacket came zooming from the house, and settled itself over Ginny's shoulders.

"Thank you." She turned her face toward the water that now looked a deep sapphire colour in the gathering dusk. Her hair was twisted up into a clip in the back, and a few of the strands had escaped to frame her face. He watched the light play off them, turning them to copper and gold. She looked very pretty, with her bright eyes, and cheeks pink from the chill; he wondered how he had ever thought her as plain and provincial.

"Could we walk on the beach?" she asked, interrupting his thoughts.

He looked doubtful. "You don't think it's too cold?"

"Oh, please? Just a short walk."

"All right, if you like." They pushed away from the table and found the path that led down to the sea's edge. The moon was just coming up from the rim of the water, and a few stars had begun to wink on in the sky. The path opened onto a rocky outcropping about two metres above the sand, where it ended. Draco wondered if he should try to help Ginny down. She was an independent thing, and might be offended by the gesture. Years of his mother's careful training overcame his doubts, however; he jumped down first, and turned to offer her his hand. She took it, and it felt very warm and fragile in his. She jumped to the sand, and gripped his hand, grabbing for his shoulder to steady herself. They looked at each other and something flashed between them that made Draco's mouth suddenly go dry. It would be so easy to pull her close and kiss her, the way he had in front of Betsy Kincaid at Four Winds the other night. Only, this time no one would be watching. This time he would be doing it because he wanted to. He hesitated. He saw Ginny swallow hard and look away from him. She pulled her hand away, and the moment was over.

Silently, they walked down to the water's edge, and started up the beach. The tide had turned and was coming in, and the sand was dry and fine. Without warning, Draco felt the brush of her fingers and she slipped her hand into his again. He glanced at her, startled. She was looking at him uncertainly, from under her lashes. A surge of warmth went through him, and he laced his fingers firmly through hers and tugged her closer to him. She smiled and studiously looked at her feet.

Draco felt as though he were floating ten feet above the sand. She had reached for him first. Did that mean he could kiss her? He _wanted_ to kiss her. He wanted to do more than just kiss her. They walked the length of the small beach without saying a word, and Draco did not register more than a cursory impression of anything around him. It was as if the question were hanging silently between them the entire time: _What now?_

By the time they neared the rock jetty on the far edge of the sand, Draco's thoughts were in turmoil. Kissing women was nothing new to him; hell, he'd done everything there was to do with a woman, and done it often. Ginny was a different matter altogether. She was not just _any_ woman. She certainly was not the brittle, beautiful, anorexic kind of female he was used to going around with: to sleeping with. She was... she was better than that. She was warm and feisty. She was pretty and intelligent. She was the only woman he had ever both desired and respected: what if she didn't want to kiss him? Well, he was damned if he was going to live in the same house with her affecting him like this, and not do anything about it. He had to at least try.

They reached the jetty, where the sand was in shadows, and Ginny started to turn back the way they'd come. He stopped, his stomach roiling with nerves in a way it hadn't done for ten years.

He pulled at her hand. "Hey."

She came into his arms as though she'd been waiting for it to happen. She slipped her arms around his waist and leaned into him, her cheek against his chest. Draco hardly dared to keep breathing. She was... perfect; warm and pliable, and willing. He moved a little, fitting her curves to the shape of his own body. With one hand, she began to trace a pattern on the small of his back. He closed his eyes and stifled the sound that tried to rise up in his chest. Did she have any idea what it was doing to him, to have her hands on him like that?

He stooped to brush his nose roughly against hers, coaxing her to turn her face up. She did, and he let his mouth hover above hers, just shy of touching it. Giving her time to be sure before everything changed, at once and forever, between them. She smelled wonderfully, of salt air and light sweat, and the wine she had drunk at dinner. Draco gripped her arms, not sure how much longer he could hold himself back.

She reached up and slid one hand into his hair, and pulled his head down. She kissed him. _Ginny kissed him._

Her lips were dry and hesitant, and they destroyed any shred of self-possession he had left. The ground, and everything around him spun away until there was nothing in the world but the soft crush of her mouth against his, and the pounding of blood in his ears. He had never thought it would be like this: hadn't begun to imagine how she would make him fly. All his instincts, all his experience deserted him; he stood still, lost and drowning in her, and let her completely undo him.

Somehow – he could not remember doing it – he found the clip that held back her hair, fumbled it open and dropped it to the ground. Her hair tumbled down around her shoulders, and he let go of her to bury his hands in the silky length of it, pulling her closer, shifting his mouth on hers.

She made a noise in her throat and broke away from him. They stood there in the shadows, their chests heaving raggedly while they stared at one another. She raked a hand through her dishevelled hair. His eyes lingered on the shape of her mouth, which was all he could see in the shadows. His mouth had been on it; it belonged to him now. A nearly feral possessiveness rose up in him; he reached for her again and pulled her against his hips.

"Let's go back to the house," she whispered.

His heart leapt. _Did she mean...?_ He looked hard at her, but her eyes were veiled in shadows and he couldn't tell what she was thinking. He took her hand. It was all he could do to start walking, to not push her back onto the sand and put his hands all over her... to wait until they got to the house.

In silence, they walked back; by moonlight they found footholds in the rocks to hoist themselves up on the outcropping, until they were back on the path leading to the villa. On the way, they kissed again. He slipped one hand under her jumper and rested it on her waist. She let him do it. His head spun. Her skin was warm, and he was _touching_ it. He still was not sure what she intended, what she would let him do. He slid his other hand, over her jumper, to the curve of her breast. He felt her soft gasp against his mouth, and then she moved closer to him.

_Yes!_ She wanted what he wanted. He had to get her to the house _now_. Get her to his bedroom. He dragged his mouth away from hers. "Come on," he muttered hoarsely, pulling on her hand. He felt drugged and heavy, and at the same time strangely light and reckless. Journey's End came into view, and they went up the steps and into the pool of light spilling from the front windows. He held the door open and followed her in.

He was reaching for her again when Lolly the house-elf appeared in the doorway leading from the living room. Draco froze, a stab of dread going through him. Lolly would not bother him at this time of night unless... "Yes?" he said to her.

The house-elf seemed to take in the situation at a glance, his hands on Ginny's waist, their undoubtedly dishevelled appearances, and a look of real distress crossed her lined face. "Lolly is sorry, sir. Lolly would not disturb Sir and Miss, but..."

"Just say it, Lolly!" But she didn't have to say it. He knew before the words were out of her mouth what they would be.

"There is a Floo call for Master," she whispered. She twisted her hands together in agitation, and actually trembled.

'Damn it!' Draco clutched reflexively at Ginny's waist and pulled her close to him, closing his eyes and resting his chin on her head. Silently, he cursed the old Muggle who had bought his life for him all those years ago. Because this was what it always came to: his life was not his own to do with what he wanted. It did not belong to him; he had been called, and he had to go. After a moment, he collected himself. Surely, this call would not take long, and he would be back in Ginny's arms within hours. Without opening his eyes, he said, "All right Lolly. I'll be along in a moment." He sensed, rather than heard, the house-elf withdraw.

"What is it, Draco?" The sound of his name from Ginny's lips brought him back to the moment. Gently, he dropped a kiss on the tip of her freckled nose, and let go of her.

"I have to leave."

"_What?_" Her mouth fell open in astonishment. "No! Surely you don't mean right _now_?"

The pain of it was almost physical. "I'm afraid I do."

"But why?" She looked hurt and bewildered.

He put his hands on her shoulders and took a deep breath. "Ginny, I can't tell you right now; there isn't time. I just have to go, and I have to do it quickly."

"But... when will you be back?"

"Soon, I hope. I don't know though; it might be a day or two."

She wrapped her arms around her waist, hugging herself as though she were suddenly cold. After a moment, she said, "Can you tell me what it's about after you get back?"

He lied, because it was the quickest way out, and time was of the essence. "Yes, I'll tell you when I get back."

"All right," she said softly, reluctantly. "Go ahead then."

"Ginny, I am sorry. I wouldn't go if I didn't have to."

"I know. I trust you."

_I trust you._

The words seared through him like a brand, and Draco had never despised himself more completely than he did at that moment.

_I trust you._

'If only you knew.' He kissed her again, briefly, almost desperately, then turned and went to the Floo in his bedroom. He did not look back because he knew if he did he would not be able to keep walking away.

Ginny did not fall asleep for a long time that night. She lay under a light blanket on Draco's bed and wondered at how quickly things had changed between the two of them. A week ago, they had been nearly mortal enemies; tonight, she had kissed him. Truth be told, she had been about to _sleep_ with him. And he would have been the first. She was only slightly shocked at herself. He was a very good-looking man, after all, and kissing him... She touched her lips and smiled secretly to herself in the dark: Draco was no Ted; great Morgana, he was no Ted! She turned onto her stomach and buried her face in his pillow, giddy and impatient, and waited for him to come home. He did not return, however, and towards morning she drifted, at last, into a fitful sleep. She woke at ten o'clock and knew at once where she was. She looked at the other side of the bed: he still was not home. She went to find Lolly.

The house-elf would not tell her where Draco had gone. She only shook her head and insisted, tearfully, that she was bound to keep her master's secrets. She begged Mistress not to be too hard on her.

"But Lolly," said Ginny, beginning to be hurt and angry. "Can't you at least tell me when to expect him back? I don't know whether I should stay here, or go back to Four Winds. As it is, our tour of the vineyard is ruined; we were supposed to be there three hours ago."

Lolly wrung her hands. "If Mistress will allow Lolly to offer an opinion..."

"What?"

"Perhaps it would be best for Mistress to go back to Four Winds. It may be many days before Master comes home again."

She didn't want to believe it would be 'many days' before Draco returned, but she was familiar enough with his prolonged disappearances not to discount it. Going home seemed to make the most sense of anything. "All right Lolly, we'll go back to Scotland and wait for him there. Let's be ready to leave within the hour."

Ginny slept in Draco's bed at Four Winds that night, her arms wrapped around a pillow that smelled like him, but he did not come home then, either. By Monday morning, she was nearly in a panic of alternating fear and rage. What if he were in trouble somewhere, with no way to reach her, and no one to help him? And how dare he just go off and leave her hanging, without so much as a word of explanation!

She went to work, because there was nothing else she _could_ do, and when she got to her office, her door was already open. "There's someone to see you, Ginny," said Lorelei, the assistant. "He said he was a friend of yours, so I put him in your office to wait."

Ginny looked around the doorjamb and gave a cry of delight. "Harry!" She went to him, and he stood to embrace her and give her a peck on the cheek. "This is a nice surprise," she said, smiling broadly. "I haven't seen you in ages! What have you been doing with yourself?"

Harry shrugged and stuffed his hands self-consciously into the pockets of his faded jeans. "Oh, a little of this, a little of that. I'm still with Auror Special Forces, doing International cases: espionage, organised crime, that sort of thing. Nothing very exciting."

"It _sounds_ exciting."

"Well, it's a lot of paperwork mostly, but yeah –" in spite of his efforts toward nonchalance, Harry grinned. "– yeah, it gets exciting sometimes."

"Have you got time for some tea? I'd love to hear about your work."

"Yeah, I've got time."

Ginny went to the door and stuck her head out. "Lorelei, could you bring us a tea tray please?"

Lorelei did, and while they caught up on each other's news, Ginny observed Harry carefully. He was thinner than ever, and his eyes were lined and shadowed, as though he hadn't had enough rest in a very long time. His hair, as always, was a rumpled mess, and shot through here and there with grey. He was only twenty-six but he looked closer to forty.

"Harry," she said, when there was a lull in the conversation. "You look worn out. Are you working too hard?"

He gave a hollow laugh. "Working too hard for what?"

"Well, too hard for good health, for one thing."

"Yes, I suppose I've been working too hard for that." He shrugged as though he didn't care, and Ginny thought she understood.

"But not hard enough to escape?" she asked gently.

He glanced up at her with a curious deadness in his eyes, but did not answer.

She edged forward on her seat and put her hand over his. "Are you still trying to outrun the memories of the war?"

"It was a bad war," he said, with a bitter twist to his voice. "I don't think I'll ever outrun the memories."

They were silent for a while. Harry was right, Ginny thought: it had been a bad war. They had lost so many people they'd loved: Charlie, and Percy, and Hagrid, and Dumbledore. Neville had died in battle, and so had both of the Creevey brothers, and – oh, too many more to name. Scores more of their friends had simply never been found. In the end, the Death Eaters had been routed; Voldemort had been destroyed, and they had all gone home.

But the scars had taken longer to heal; some of them never would. Harry had taken it all particularly hard. He had had so few people to love in his life, Ginny reflected, that when he did love someone he did it so fiercely and loyally that losing them was bound to destroy him. They all had to deal with their pain in their own way, though. If working night and day, punishing himself into the ground was Harry Potter's way of working through it all, then what was she to say about it? She had learned long ago that there was nothing she _could_ say, so she did not lecture him, only joined him in his silence.

At length, he roused himself and gave her a crooked grin. "Anyhow, I didn't come here to be maudlin. I actually came to see you about work."

"Your work, or my work?"

"Both, actually. I have a proposition for you."

She raised her eyebrows and waited for him to go on.

"Are you still interested in working with Auror Special Forces?" Harry asked her.

"Well... yes, I suppose so. Jobs with ASF are supposed to be nearly impossible to come by though, aren't they?"

"Yes, and I'm not saying I can get you a job, but I can help you get a foot in the door with them, I think."

Ginny was intrigued. The idea of one day getting out of the Ministry and working for Special Forces... it was a dream she'd nearly given up on. "What did you have in mind?" she asked.

"There's a case we've been working for nearly six years now." He picked up a thick, manila folder from the floor under his chair. "What do you know about the Dark of the Moon Society?"

Ginny frowned and sifted her memory. "It rings a bell... I haven't heard about them since Auror training though. Aren't they some sort of international group?"

"They're wizard mafia," Harry said bluntly. "You're right; they're organised internationally, with headquarters in Russia, Indonesia, the United States, and here in Britain. They work closely with the Muggle mafia on every continent, and they've got a finger in every major political pie in the world. They're a ruthless, bad-ass bunch of people, and believe me you do not want to cross wands with them."

"What kinds of things do they do?"

"What _don't_ they do?" Harry began to tick them off on his fingers. "Prostitution rings, drug cartels, supplying weapons to terrorists, human trafficking –"

Ginny interrupted him. "_Human_ trafficking?"

"Oh sure. There's a roaring slave trade that goes on under the skin of every nation, no matter how squeaky clean it looks on the surface."

"Surely not in England!"

"Yes, in England too, I'm afraid."

Ginny sat back and tried to absorb this. "So... you've been working on this case involving the Dark of the Moon Society for six years. What are you trying to do?"

"We're trying to bring down some of their big wands. It's taken us six years to gather enough intelligence to have the hard evidence it'll take to put them away for good. We've tracked down the heads in Russia, Asia and the US. We've only now got a lead on the British man, someone who calls himself The Baron."

"The Baron," Ginny repeated. "Do you know where he is?"

"Not yet. That's where you come in."

"Me? Whatever do you need me for?"

Harry grinned. "We don't exactly _need_ you, silly: we have more than enough people to find this guy. I thought, though, that if you did it for us it would serve two purposes. First, it would get you a leg up with Special Forces: do a good job and they'll remember you when a post comes open."

"Oh, that sounds exciting! What's the second thing?"

His eyes glittered strangely. He opened the manila folder he held and drew out a thick sheaf of parchments. "A chance to avenge yourself on an old enemy."

She looked at him quizzically. Harry thumbed through the parchments, until he found the one he wanted, and pulled it from the stack. "These are the vital statistics, last known address, etc of the man we believe to be The Baron." He handed her the parchment, and Ginny looked at it.

Her stomach plummeted to the floor and she stared at the photograph in disbelief. Harry's words came back to her in a confusing rush of syllables: "...weapons to terrorists... human trafficking... ruthless... mafia... human trafficking..." The room began to shift oddly around her, and she groped for the arm of the chair to steady herself. She looked up at Harry, who had his arms crossed over his chest, looking smug and triumphant.

"Are you sure?" she could hardly do more than whisper it.

He nodded, "Nearly. We think Draco Malfoy is The Baron. Find him for us, and we'll nail him to the wall. Find him, and we'll have him in Azkaban faster than you can say 'Dementor's Kiss'."

_**A/N:** Like you, I'll be reading HBP next week. If Book #6 doesn't render this story completely implausible, then I look forward to meeting up with you for Chapter 13 soon. Until then, happy reading!_


	13. Chapter 13

_**A/N:** Didn't you just love Draco in HBP? Thanks to everyone who's reviewed: you all make my day, every day! And thanks to the incomparable **Gabriele**, who faithfully formats and posts these chapters for me, because I am a technological idiot, and have never been able to figure it out for myself._

**Chapter 13**

Ginny stared dumbly at the sheaf of parchments in her hands, at the photo of Draco's handsome, arrogant face smirking up at her. From a great distance, she heard Harry saying something, but she couldn't seem to make sense of his words. Her mind was carrying on an argument with itself.

_'It's not true, of course. He wouldn't be involved in this.'_

'Oh come on: you know he was always capable of it.'

_'No! He's changed!'_

'Has he? How do you know?'

_'I just... do. I mean, he could. People change... right?'_

Somehow she got through the rest of that meeting, her mind blessedly shifting into automatic and making her mouth form pleasantries she later couldn't remember saying. The moment Harry was out the door she stuffed the sheaf of parchments into her briefcase, grabbed her travelling cloak, and headed for the Apparition Port.

Lolly was surprised to see her home, when she had only been gone just over an hour. She told her that yes, Master Draco was still away, and was Mistress feeling all right? Did she want a cup of tea or a digestive biscuit? Ginny sent her back to her work in the kitchen, and went upstairs.

Draco's bedroom was unlocked, and she stepped inside cautiously, closing the door behind her, looking around herself with new eyes. Three hours ago, she had awoken in this bedroom feeling that it belonged to her as much as to him. So much had changed between them; she had really begun to hope – no, _begun_ was the wrong word. She had never been one to make up her mind about anything by degrees; hope had simply flared into life and burnt brilliantly in her from the moment Draco had shown her that waterfall, more than a week ago. She had let him charm her, kiss her even. He had bought her a pair of sunglasses and a stupid vase, and she had nearly let him sleep with her.

She had nearly let herself fall in love with him.

Now, skulking about his bedroom, looking for evidence that would lock him away in Azkaban, she felt like a sneaking, deceiving traitor. Which, of course, was exactly what she was. But then, very possibly – no, very _probably_ – it was what Draco was too, so didn't that put them on even ground?

She did her best to force those kinds of thoughts out of her mind. This was not personal, it was purely professional. There was right and wrong to consider: good and evil. It was her job to unearth evil and see that it was done away with. If that happened to conflict with something that had happened to her heart, then so be it. Emotions could not take precedence here.

Firmly, she fixed her mind on the task at hand. She had heard Draco mention his 'study' a time or two, yet she had never seen a room that fit that description, in all the rest of the house. It made sense, then, that it might be off his bedroom. She looked around: there were three doors in the room, besides the bathroom door. Determinedly, she strode to the first and yanked it open. It was a clothes cupboard, filled end to end with Draco's usual array of gorgeously-cut robes and highly-polished shoes.

The second door also revealed a clothes cupboard, but this one was more puzzling. It contained only a handful of clothing: jeans, tee-shirts, work boots, trainers, and all of it stained, torn, and very worn-looking. It looked, she thought at once, like the kind of clothing a carpenter or a labourer would wear on the job. She had never seen Draco wear any of it. She frowned at the clothes, then leaned forward and cautiously sniffed one of the shirts. It had been laundered, but an acrid smell of smoke still clung to it. It wasn't cigarette smoke, nor would she have called it wood smoke. It was... where had she smelled that particular odour before?

The war. She remembered vividly then how she and Harry, Ron and Hermione had picked their way through the rubble of Hagrid's hut the morning after it had burnt to the ground. What she smelled on Draco's clothes was the same odour that had hung in the air that day: the scent of destruction and terror, of burning buildings, and loss and ruin, and the collapse of someone's dreams. She frowned, trying to add this puzzle piece to the picture of Draco that was still evolving in her mind. She didn't like the way it fit.

The third door was locked. She felt her pulse quicken; where the two cupboard doors had opened by swinging outward, into the bedroom, this one had the hinges on the inside; it opened inward, indicating that the room behind it was bigger than a clothes cupboard. Pointing her wand at the lock, she said, _"Alohomora."_ Nothing; apparently, it needed a password. The image of the broom shed sprang immediately to mind: the password there was 'Thursday', and she could almost hear Draco's voice, that first night they had flown together, saying, _'Not the most creative password maybe, but I bought the house on a Thursday, and it's something I can remember.'_

She pointed her wand again. _"Alohomora Thursday."_ Nothing happened. She glared at the stubborn lock. She could try going through all the days of the week, but sometimes locks had built-in hacking protection spells that locked down after three wrong attempts, and wouldn't let you in even if you got the password right after that. She contemplated the door, thinking. If this was Draco's study, it was possible he hadn't always kept it locked. Possibly, it was only locked because of her. And she had come to live here on a Sunday.

_"Alohomora Sunday."_ She held her breath: the door clicked open. "Oh, Draco, Draco, Draco," she muttered with satisfaction. "You'll have to do better than that if you want to keep me out." Cautiously, she pushed open the door, and felt her mouth drop into a little, soundless "O".

It looked like some sort of military headquarters. A vast, walnut desk dominated the space, with a silver Sneakoscope spinning and shrilling wildly on its polished surface. She twitched her wand at it, and it fell over, still and silent. A foe-glass hung on the wall, and she could see her own face looking out of it with an expression that was half-guilt, half-defiance. Her reflection in Draco's foe-glass: proof enough that this was something she, an Auror, was not supposed to see. The entire left wall was taken up with a three-dimensional map of the world, drawn in shimmering blue light, and suspended in the air. She went closer to it; it emitted a low humming noise, and was covered with thousands of dots, in different sizes and colours, swarming over its surface like ants. _What was it for?_

She watched the dots move across the faces of the oceans and continents. Some moved slowly, while others seemed to jump from place to place – people Apparating? Eventually though, as she watched, a few of the dots began to stand out from the others.

A large, red one that did not move at all, in Moscow.

Another stationary red one on the island of Sumatra.

One in the US, in a state called Virginia.

Her eyes jumped almost frantically to Great Britain, expecting to see the final red dot in the Highlands of Scotland. But no; it was there, but it was further south, on the Isle of Wight. Four Winds was not the actual British Headquarters, then. If Draco was really The Baron that would explain his frequent disappearances from home: he had been going to England, to conduct business from there.

She turned her attention to his desk. Three drawers ran down the left side of it, with one long one across the top. It was not locked. The top drawer proved to hold only quills and ink, parchment, sealing wax, and – ominously – a seal with the letters DMS worked in ornate script. DMS: Dark of the Moon Society. Feeling a little sick, Ginny slammed shut this drawer and yanked open the top one on the left.

It, and the two beneath it, were full of neatly organized file folders. She hesitated, a part of her not wanting to know: wanting to hold onto the illusion that this was all a mistake, that she was not actually seeing what she was seeing. But she was a professional, and she had a job to do. She steeled herself and pulled the first file from the drawer. The folder was filled with smooth, blank sheets of parchment. There was nothing there: no writing, no photographs, no maps, nothing. The next was like it, and the next, and all the rest of the files in all of the drawers: they were all blank. Encoded, obviously, and if she'd been an Auror worth half her salt, she would have set to work at once trying to decode them.

Instead, she slammed shut the drawers and sank onto the floor with her head on her knees. She was filled with a half-hysterical sense of relief that she could not read the files; she had already seen more than she could take in for the moment. She needed some time to process it – to process her feelings about it, and about Draco – before she looked any further.

Eventually, she pulled herself together and left the study, closing and locking the door behind her, and went down to the library to wait for his return.

Draco spun to a stop in the Floo and stepped out onto the hearth rug in his own bedroom. Home. Ginny.

She had never been far from his thoughts in the – he glanced at the mantle clock – the twenty-eight hours and forty-two minutes since he'd left her. He was back now though, and she'd be finished work in a few hours. He had time for a shower and a nap before she came home. In fact, he'd kip on the sofa in the library, where he'd be sure to hear her when she came in.

It would also give him time, he thought, to fabricate an excuse for where he'd been, and why he'd had to leave so abruptly. Because no matter what he'd promised her before he'd left, he was not going to tell her about Quicksilver. Everything depended on the fact that no one knew, no one but three other men whom he trusted profoundly: trusted with his life. Ginny was beautiful; she was clever; she was good. But he did not trust her; he could not afford to let himself do that. He showered, did a quick Drying Charm on his hair and tied it back in its usual leather thong, then went down to the library to wait for her.

He opened the door and something inside him leapt joyfully when he saw her unexpectedly sitting there, waiting for him. In the next second, however, he registered the work robes she still wore, and the tension etched on her face. He frowned. "You're home early, aren't you? Is anything wrong?"

She stood up, her hands clenched into fists at her sides, and Draco realized with a sinking feeling that much more than just the length of the room stood between them. She was angry.

Well, he supposed he couldn't blame her, the way he'd left her to shift for herself in Crete like that, disappearing without a word of explanation. He regarded her warily, wondering how long it might take to convince her to pick up where they'd left off the other night...

"We need to talk," she said.

That was the trouble with women: they were always wanting to _talk_ things to death. He stifled an impatient sound, and resigned himself to the inevitable. "All right. What do we need to talk about?"

"The Dark of the Moon Society."

It was the last thing in the world he had expected to hear. Something cold and hard dropped into the pit of Draco's stomach. He forced himself to sound careless. "What about it?"

"You've heard of them?"

"Of course I've heard of them: I imagine anyone who reads the papers has done, at one time or another."

"Draco –"

He interrupted her. "Look, if you're going to be staging a full Inquisition here, I think I'd like to have a drink first." He crossed to the bar and poured himself a whiskey with a perfectly steady hand. "Can I get you something?"

"No, I don't want a drink. What I want are answers."

He came around the bar to face her, and raised his glass in a mocking toast. "To answers then. Fire away."

Ginny seemed nonplussed by his cavalier attitude toward it all. She looked at him long and searchingly, and finally said, "Are you involved in the Dark of the Moon Society?"

There it was, then. He could see no sense in lying about it; obviously she already knew.

"Yes," he said. "I am." He watched her face blanch, her freckles standing out in stark relief against the pallor, though her expression never once wavered.

"They're wizard mafia," she said, as though somehow he might not already know this. As if it might change his answer.

"Yes, I know." Draco sounded bland, polite, even a bit disinterested. They might have been discussing different opinions on the state of the roads, or the weather. In reality, he felt he might possibly throw up.

The mantle clock ticked in the silence. After a moment, she asked, "Are you The Baron?"

He started. "How do you know about The Baron?"

"How do I know about any of this? I had a visit from an Auror Special Forces agent today."

Reflexively, he sneered. "Special Forces? That wouldn't have been your old friend _Harry Potter_, would it?"

"It was Harry, as a matter of fact."

"I might have known he'd come tomcatting around one of these days. I hope you thought to tell him you're married now. I hope you remembered it yourself."

Ginny gasped. "What a filthy thing to say!"

He knew it was, and he regretted it the instant it came out of his mouth. He wasn't about to take it back, though. He wasn't about to give her any more of an advantage over him than she already had. He looked at her stonily.

Her eyes narrowed, and her voice grew hard. "All right Draco, if you want to talk like a pig to me, fine: I should be used to it by now. Meanwhile, let's keep to the subject at hand, shall we? Are you The Baron or not?"

He took a sip of his drink and fixed his gaze somewhere above her head. "No. I'm not."

"But... there _is_ such a person? You know about him?"

"Of course I know about him. I work for him."

"You... _work_ for him? What does that mean, exactly?"

"If you want details, I'm afraid I'm going to have to disappoint you. In general, though, it means I take orders from him, see that they're executed, report back to him, and collect payment for services rendered." He forced down another swallow of his whiskey. It tasted like pure gall in his mouth.

_"Services rendered?"_ She spat the words. "Is that what you call them? Drug trafficking; prostitution; human _slavery_ –"

"_You_," he cut in harshly, "have no idea what my work involves! Don't accuse me of things you know nothing about!"

"Oh, come off it, Draco! You're telling me you're involved with the mafia, but somehow you're not involved in the despicable things they do?"

"I'm not telling you _anything_, one way or the other. If Auror Special Forces are so clever, let them figure it out." He swallowed the rest of his drink and forced himself to sound indifferent. "I assume now you know all this you'll be turning me over to them."

For a moment, she didn't speak, but only stared at him with eyes that were over bright, twin spots of colour blazing in her white face. At last, she said, "I can't turn you in, can I? If I do, they'll throw you in Azkaban. The Curse of the Firstborn says we have to live together a year and a day, remember?"

He wanted to sag with relief. Instead, he spoke coldly. "Ah, right: the Curse. So, if you turn me in, your brother's life will be in jeopardy."

"It's not only my brother's life I'm concerned about." For a heart-stopping second, she looked at him with an expression of such mingled pain and ferocity that Draco's breath failed him.

"They don't want you, Draco." Her voice became suddenly pleading. "They want this 'Baron,' whoever he is. They won't bother coming after you – not if you agree to deal. Tell me who The Baron is, and I know Harry will see that you go free."

He nearly laughed out loud. "Don't be an idiot, Ginny: I'm not turning anyone over to the Aurors, especially not to _Harry Potter_. You say you won't grass me up to Special Forces until our year is out? Fine. Thank you, even. After that, I'll take my chances."

"You..." her voice faltered, "you don't actually... _want_ to be a part of this?"

He could not answer her.

"How do you live with yourself?" she said in a horrified whisper. "How do you even sleep at night?"

Draco was suddenly furious. She only knew part of the story; why did it have to be the terrible, incriminating part? "You self-righteous little bint! How _dare_ you presume to judge me?" His voice was rising, his temper getting away from him, but he hardly cared. "You know _nothing_ about me! Nothing!"

She held up a hand to stop him, and her voice was deadly quiet. "You're wrong, Draco. I know everything I need to know about you. You just told me everything that matters." And she crossed the room, opened the door, and walked out.

Out in the corridor, Ginny heard a nasty word being shouted from the library, and the distinct sound of a whiskey tumbler shattering against the door.

It was impossible, of course, to avoid each other forever. Where before the incident in the library, it had seemed Draco was being called away on his mysterious errands every few days, now it seemed – inconveniently – that he never left home. They saw each other at every mealtime, and often ended up in the library together afterward, much as they had done before. Ginny refused to give up her evenings there, on the principle that _she_ hadn't done anything wrong, so why should she hide up in her bedroom every night? If he was uncomfortable around her, let _him_ leave. Unfortunately, Draco seemed to have much the same philosophy, and as both refused to surrender an inch of territory, they had to put up with one another's company. The atmosphere between them reverted to one of icy tension. It was as though the day in Crete had never happened.

She did not bring up the Dark of the Moon Society with him again. Auror Special Forces were not really looking for him, after all; it was The Baron they wanted. She kept quiet on the subject, biding her time; sooner or later, Draco would leave again and she would be able to get back to his study and start decoding some of the files in his desk. She would find out who The Baron was, and turn him over to Special Forces, and be shot of this whole, horrible responsibility. She would somehow get through the rest of this year living with Draco, and then she would leave and never, never look back.

Somehow, she would scrape together enough of her heart to keep on living.

On Thursday of that week, Betsy Kincaid Flooed her to say she and Lowen wanted them to come for dinner on Saturday. Ginny told Draco about it that night, while they ate.

"Do you want to go?" he asked her.

She shrugged dispiritedly. They could go, or not go; nothing really seemed to matter any more. Suddenly though, a question occurred to her for the first time. She put down her knife and fork.

"Do they know that you're part of the mafia? Are they involved in it too?" She didn't know which would be worse; to hear that they knew, and were a part of it, or to hear that they _didn't_ know; that Draco had been deceiving these wonderful people all along, just as he'd deceived her.

He winced. "Could you please refer to it by its proper name? It's called the Dark of the Moon Society."

"Oh, pardon me," she said tartly. "I didn't realize there was an etiquette to all this. By all means, I'll try to refer to it in the nicest terms possible from now on."

"Crassness doesn't suit you either, Ginny."

"Well, it seems I can't speak in any way that pleases you then, can I?"

"Oh, you most certainly can." He raised his eyebrows suggestively. "Should I remind you of some of the things you said that day on Crete? They pleased me very much."

Ginny felt her cheeks flame. Infuriating man! There he sat, smirking at her, entirely unrepentant – she picked up her dinner roll and threw it as hard as she could at him.

He dodged it narrowly, and grabbed her wrist. He was – he was actually _laughing_ at her! Ginny was mute with rage, and to her horror, she felt tears begin to well up in her eyes. She wrenched her wrist out of his grasp and stood up so abruptly her chair went over backward.

"You're despicable," she whispered. She started to move past him, to leave the room, but he stood up too, and blocked her.

"Sit down, Ginny."

"No. I'm going to my room. Move out of my way." She tried to push past him, but he took her by the arms.

"Sit down, I said." His voice sounded weary. "I'm not going to live out the rest of this year in a cold war with you, and I daresay you don't want it either; I think we'd both agree we're beyond that point. We may as well talk about this and get it over with."

She hesitated. She did want to talk about it: she wanted answers. She wanted him to tell her it was all a joke; that he really wasn't involved in anything as horrible as the mafia. She bent and righted her chair, and sat back down.

"Lolly!" Draco shouted. With a 'crack' the house-elf appeared before them.

"Yes, Master?"

"Bring Ms Weasley and me our coffee."

"_Please,_" Ginny added pointedly, glaring at him.

He looked amused. "As the lady says, Lolly."

He waited until the house-elf had cleared away their plates, brought their coffee, and returned to the kitchen. Then, he picked up a teaspoon and began to turn it in his hands, studying it as he spoke. "You have to understand that my father was a member of the Dark of the Moon Society before I was even born."

"I thought your father was a Death Eater," she interrupted him.

He shrugged. "He was, but the two were never mutually exclusive. Loads of people were involved in both. And remember, there were thirteen years between the Dark Lord's first reign and when he came back again. During those years, there wasn't a lot for the Death Eaters to do. Dark of the Moon kept my father busy in the meanwhile. It was very lucrative; it's how he built the family fortune." He dropped the spoon into his coffee cup and began to stir idly, and Ginny could see that his mind was somewhere far away: somewhere in the past.

She said nothing, but waited for him to continue.

"I grew up privy to all my father's activities. He made sure I saw plenty, heard plenty, so that by the time I was old enough to make the choice to join or not to join, there was no choice left for me to make."

"What do you mean?" She watched him carefully balance the spoon on the rim of his cup.

"I mean I knew too much about Dark of the Moon. I learned it all at my father's knee before I even knew what I was learning." He looked at her impassively. "Someone who knows the things I knew about them isn't just allowed to walk away from it, Ginny. Not and live, anyway."

Her voice, when she spoke, was shaky. "It... it sounds like something from a bad Muggle film."

"It does, rather, doesn't it?" His mouth twisted into a bitter facsimile of a smile.

"How old were you?"

"When I was officially inducted in? Seventeen."

There was another question she had long wanted to ask him. Instinctively, she felt he would tell her the truth if she asked it now. "Were you a Death Eater too?"

He picked up his napkin and began, deliberately, to fold it into little pleats. "No, funnily enough I never got around to that."

"Why not?"

"Ah! That's a story for another day, I'm afraid."

They sat in silence, while she tried to get up her nerve to ask the next question. It wasn't the asking that she dreaded; what she was afraid of was the answer she might hear. She cleared her throat. "Will you tell me what kinds of things you do in the – for them?"

"Ginny," he said, and his voice was surprisingly gentle. "I don't think you really want me to answer that, do you? And besides –" he held up his hand to silence her protest. "I've already put you in considerable danger just by telling you what I've told you."

"Danger? How?"

"The Baron knows I'm married to you: he's known about The Curse of the Firstborn as long as I have myself. But he's confident I won't tell you anything about my involvement in Dark of the Moon, because we're both planning for you to be gone in a year. It's his confidence in that that's kept you safe so far."

"Safe? I don't understand: safe from what?"

"I already told you," he said patiently. "People aren't allowed to know about these things and just... walk away from it."

Ginny felt as though an icy hand had gripped the back of her neck. "Oh –"

"So I think it would be best for you if you didn't ask any more questions, all right? The less you know about it, the safer you are."

She sat in silence and tried to digest this. The Baron – world leader of the wizard mafia – knew about her! It should have been a chilling thought, and yet Ginny did not feel at all afraid. She told him this.

"Well perhaps you should let me be afraid _for_ you then," he said, giving her a funny little smile that made her heart twist painfully in her chest. "I'm not going to endanger you any more than I already have, so the subject is closed."

She remembered then how they had got onto the subject in the first place. "Do the Kincaids know?"

He said, "No, they don't, and I'd like to keep it that way."

"What about David and Fiona Gordon?"

"No."

"Then... will we have dinner with them Saturday night?" She said it with an apologetic smile because it was such a stupid thing to say, such an irrelevant, _normal_ conclusion to all this talk of murderers and underworld evil and both their lives being in danger.

But Draco seemed to understand. "I think that sounds like an excellent idea."

Betsy and Lowen Kincaid owned a sprawling, modern estate called Heart's Content, on the outskirts of Edinburgh. It was here that Ginny and Draco were to join them for dinner on the Saturday night. They had just stepped into the Apparition Port to make the journey, when Draco reached for her hand. She shot a startled look at him.

"Just keeping up appearances," he said easily.

"Oh..." she'd forgotten about that, but before she could wrap her mind around the implications, they were stepping out of the Kincaids' Port, and being enveloped in Betsy's effusive embraces. The big, bashful Lowen greeted them more quietly, but with no less enthusiasm. David and Fiona were there as well, and Ginny was really glad to see all of them again. Betsy's French house-elf was a marvellous cook, and they spent a pleasant four hours talking and laughing, first around the table, and later, around the fireplace in the Great Room. Draco was at his most charming: he teased Betsy, made Fiona laugh, and engaged David in a discussion of political history that went far over Ginny's head.

She felt, the whole time, that she was walking around in a sort of a dream, standing at the edge of the room watching events unfold. She saw Draco's hand on her back as he pulled her chair out for her at the table. She saw him drop a light kiss on her cheek when he brought her a glass of wine, and saw herself tip up her face to receive it. Later, she watched him toy with a loose tendril of her hair as they sat on the sofa together. And although inside she was a jumble of nervous confusion, she knew that not a trace of it showed in her behaviour toward him. They were the perfect couple; attentive, devoted, in love. Ginny marvelled at their acting skills.

She knew it was only keeping up appearances and yet when they stepped out of the Port at Four Winds, and Draco abruptly dropped her hand and moved away from her, she felt her stupid, traitor heart sink.

"Well, that was fun," he said, stifling a yawn. "Thanks for a lovely evening. Good-night then, Ginny." And he walked away. She watched him disappear up the staircase to his bedroom, and had to bite her lip to keep herself from calling out after him.

She sank into a chair in the foyer. Going to bed was the last thing in the world she wanted to do: she'd never sleep. She'd only lie awake and stare at the ceiling and think, the whole time, that Draco was right across the corridor, slumbering away with a perfectly carefree heart and a happy conscience.

Git.

She glanced at her wristwatch. It was only twelve-thirty. Sarah might still be awake at twelve-thirty on a Saturday night. Yes, that was exactly what she needed: Sarah, and a pumpkin ale, and a good, long gossip. She went to the library to use the Floo.

"Sarah!" she hissed, when her head had stopped spinning, and she was looking at the front room of her old flat. Sarah was sitting on the sofa, flipping through a magazine. She looked up in surprise.

"Ginny! What in the world are you doing here at this time of night? Are you all right?"

"Yes, of course I am. Just fancied a bit of company, that's all. Are you busy?"

"No. Bobby just left. I was thinking of going to bed, but I'm not all that tired. Want to come over?"

"I was hoping you'd say that."

"Wait a minute." Sarah disappeared from sight, and reappeared a moment later. "Can you nip out and pick up some wine on your way? We seem to have drunk all ours."

"Nothing easier."

"Good. There's that Apparition Port over on Crandall and Lutz, with the Muggle market right nearby. It's only two streets over from here, so you could walk the rest of the way. I'd go myself, but I'm far too lazy."

"No, of course I'll go. See you in fifteen minutes!"

Hastily, Ginny changed her robe for jeans and a jumper, humming to herself all the while. Girlfriends: what would she do without them? On her way down to the Apparition Port, she shot a baleful glare at Draco's bedroom door. Who needed him anyway?

She Apparated to the Port on the corner of Crandall and Lutz. The Muggle market was still open. The clerk, a hefty, middle-aged woman, was sitting on a high stool behind the till, staring glassily into a hand-held mirror and plucking at the little hairs on her chin with a pair of tweezers. When Ginny came in, the woman acknowledged her by waving the tweezers at her. Ginny shuddered and turned her back. She was examining the dusty bottles of wine on the shelf, and trying to decide which of the two brands there was the lesser of the evils, when the door behind her burst open, and she heard someone shout.

She turned around. Three men stood there. They wore nylon stockings over their faces, which distorted their features into something grotesque and unrecognizable. They were yelling in some incomprehensible language, and it took Ginny a moment to realize they were waving guns in the air.

A stab of pure adrenaline shot through her. She dropped to the ground and rolled to the edge of the aisle, fumbling for her wand. The shop clerk screamed, and dimly, Ginny heard the hand mirror she'd been holding shatter on the floor.

Her hand was on her wand when something hot and heavy slammed into her left shoulder. She heard the excited, foreign jabbering, and the air was filled with strange popping noises. Belatedly, she realized it was gunfire. She couldn't move her left arm. She looked down. A dark stain was seeping through the wool of her jumper. She had been shot.

Strangely enough, there was hardly any pain at all. She wanted to move, but she just... couldn't. She lay there, her heart racing wildly, staring at the shattered glass front of the cigarette case while the shouting and the popping sounds, and the awful, high-pitched screaming went on around her. And then, abruptly, the screaming stopped, as though it had been switched off somewhere. Ginny felt hot tears prick the back of her eyelids, heard herself make a little whimpering sound. She wondered how many other people had been in the shop. There was the clerk, of course, and she remembered a young man wearing headphones, who'd been looking at the magazines. There had been an older man too, who she thought had been paying for a case of beer when the masked men had burst in. Another person – impossible to tell, behind the baggy clothes, and chopped-off hair if it had been a man or a woman – was buying cigarettes. How many others? She tried to roll over, to get to her wand, and then it _did_ hurt.

The pain washed over her in a wave that took her breath away. The edges of the room began to blur, becoming soft and muted, blending together like tones of a watercolour. Dimly, she thought she smelled smoke. She felt herself beginning to slip away.

'Hold on!' She commanded herself. She heard a ripping, crackling sound, and knew that, somewhere, the shop was on fire.

'Hold on!'

Draco paced the length of his room, back and forth, back and forth. Keeping up appearances, indeed. Who did he think he was kidding? Not himself, that was for sure. He knew exactly what he'd been about; he'd known it the moment he'd taken her hand in the Apparition Port and said it to her. The truth was there was no need, with friends like the Kincaids and the Gordons, to keep up any kind of appearances; there never had been.

It was only that if he'd had to wait one more hour to touch her, he was afraid he might have gone mad.

He couldn't touch her the way he wanted to, of course. It was out of the question that he would ever again hold her in his arms and kiss her warm mouth... A shudder of longing ripped through him, and he kicked savagely at the granite fireplace. He only succeeded in hurting his foot. He leaned his arm against the mantle piece and buried his face in it, seeing her face as clearly as if she were standing before him herself.

He'd had to content himself with little things: resting his hands on her shoulders when he stood behind her chair; letting his fingers linger on hers when he handed her a glass of wine; standing close enough when he helped her on with her cloak to breathe in the warm, bright scent of her hair.

He was in love with her.

The knowledge of it came as something of a shock to him, and yet in a sense he was not surprised at all. He was the most selfish of people; this he knew and accepted, without apology, as a fact of his existence. It was the way he was made, the way he had always lived. Women, in his experience, were creatures who willingly placed themselves at his disposal: he enjoyed them solely for the pleasure they gave him. It had always just happened that way.

Ginny Weasley was another kettle of fish altogether. She had no interest in pleasing him. Neither, it seemed, was she about pleasing herself. He had observed her with Lolly; with Betsy and Fiona; with himself. She moved through life with purpose, treating others with dignity, without kowtowing or fawning over anyone. She had principles, and she was intelligent. She did not need him, or even seem, particularly, to want him. She was her own person, and did not require anyone else to complete her.

He realized that this put her maddeningly out of his reach. It was human nature to want what was forbidden; that was a principle as old as the Garden of Eden. He tried to tell himself that this was all it amounted to: he was, for the first time in his life, being denied a woman, and so, naturally, he thought he had to have her.

It had nothing to do with the warmth of her brown eyes, or the sheer, uninhibited delight on her face when she had seen the waterfall. It was not because she planted daffodils in his garden, or read her Muggle poetry books curled up like a cat in the armchair in the library. It was for certain not that damned ginger kneazle kit that was stretched out, asleep, on his duvet at this very moment...

He kicked at the fireplace again, then crossed to the little, wall-mounted potion kit in the bathroom. He was mixing himself a double Dreamless Sleeping Draught when the fire in his room flared green.

He froze, his hand on the stopper of the valerian bottle. It was a good thing he hadn't taken it yet. He dropped the bottle into the sink and went to kneel on the hearthrug.

From the edges of her fading consciousness, Ginny felt herself being lifted up in somebody's arms. Oh Circe, the pain in her shoulder! She cried out, but there was no sound to it. The smoke was thicker up here, than on the floor, and she began to cough and choke. She turned her face into the shirt front of the man who was holding her – it had to be a man; he held her as though she weighed no more than a bird. She clutched at the shirt and coughed into it, her body spasming with the pain it sent through her shoulder.

And then she felt cool air on her face, and she could breathe again. Strong arms lowered her to the pavement in front of the shop.

"Get her to St Mungo's," she heard someone say.

_St Mungo's?_ Someone knew she was a witch... Her vision grew spotty, and she closed her eyes and drifted away.

They kept her overnight at the hospital. Her wound was not deep, but she had lost a lot of blood, and was suffering from shock. She did not remember asking for Draco, but somehow he was there when she opened her eyes in the morning. She smiled, and reached for his hand.

He came and kissed her on the forehead. "You gave us a right good scare."

"It scared me too. What happened, exactly?"

"You were in the wrong place at the wrong time. The shop was being robbed, apparently, and you got in the way."

She frowned. "What about the fire?"

"One of the idiots shot up the fuse box."

"Was everyone ok?"

"No, the clerk was killed."

"Oh, that's terrible." Ginny felt her nose prickle, and her throat begin to clog up. She turned her head away from him so he would not see her tears.

"Are _you_ all right?"

She gave a great sniffle, and with her right hand, swiped at her eyes. Her left arm seemed to be immobilized at her side. "Yes, I'm fine, thanks. How did you know to find me here?"

"The Healers called me. No idea how they knew. You must have said something to them."

"I don't remember."

"What _do_ you remember?"

"Not a lot." Her tears under control, she turned to face him again, inexpressibly grateful that he had come. "I was on my way to see Sarah, and I stopped to pick up some wine. And then there was all this shouting, and I got shot. There was smoke everywhere, and someone picked me up and carried me outside."

"Who?"

"I don't know. I suppose it was the fire department, or the MLES, or something. They knew to take me to St Mungo's, anyway, so I imagine it was the MLES."

"Probably. What then?"

"I don't know, really. A Healer gave me a potion, and... here I am. Did they tell you what was wrong with my arm?"

"You were shot in the shoulder, and you lost a lot of blood, but there doesn't seem to be much damage. In fact, they said you might go home later today."

"Oh, that's a relief."

He was silent for a moment, and then said, "I was thinking you might feel better recovering at your mother's house."

"Oh, Draco, could I?" The thought of it brought such a wash of relief that she thought she might start to cry again.

"Yes, of course you can. When they're ready to release you, I'll Floo your father."

They were interrupted just then by the Healer, a brisk young Asian woman who shooed Draco out of the room, and closed the door behind him.

Gently, she felt over Ginny's arm and shoulder, flexing her fingers, probing and asking questions: "Does this hurt? And this? Can you move your second finger? And your third?" Finally, she said, "There's really no point in keeping you here, Ms Weasley. I'll send the Mediwitch in with your discharge instructions, and you can follow up with your own Healer in a week's time. How does that sound?"

"Heavenly."

"Good. Get dressed then. The paperwork won't take more than a few minutes."

Ginny had already thrown back the covers, and was getting out of bed.

"Take care then. Don't overdo things at home."

"I won't."

The Healer had her hand on the door knob when she turned back. "Oh yes, I nearly forgot –" She fished around in her pocket, and held something out to Ginny. "The man who brought you in last night asked me to give you this." She dropped a tiny, silver medallion into Ginny's hand. "Well, Cheerio!" And she was gone.

Ginny stared at the little disc, then picked it up and held it up to the light. She had never seen it before, in her life. It was no bigger than a button, and etched unmistakably, on both sides of it, was a pair of Mercury's wings.

She gasped, and groped for the bed, sitting down hard on it. Mercury's wings. Quicksilver. Her rescuer, last night, had been...

She stared blankly at the medallion, and remembered the strong arms that had picked her up. The shirt front she had buried her face in. The voice saying, "Take her to St Mungos." Quicksilver was real? Quicksilver was real! _But who on earth was he?_ She knew she would never be able to rest until she found out.

_**A/N:** Next chapter: Christmas!_


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

Ginny spent six glorious days at The Burrow recuperating from her gunshot wound. Her mother cooked all her favourite foods, and her brothers trooped through, some of them more than once, to scold her for being out alone in a rough part of London at that time of night, and then they all hugged her and told her to get well so they could quit worrying about her. One rainy afternoon she braved the ghoul and went to the attic to rummage around. There, she found a stack of cartons labelled "Ginny" in one corner, and spent a nostalgic two hours going through them.

She sorted through dried-up beginner potion kits, hair ribbons faded and frayed beyond salvaging, and old crayon drawings. She smiled at the five-year-old scrawl: her name was invariably written backwards across the page. Most of the sketches were stick figures of her family, drawn in descending order of height, all with brilliant orange hair and large smiles. Always all nine of them holding hands. One of the drawings she pulled from the stack brought tears to her eyes. It was of a similarly orange-haired figure with the same wide smile, battling a blue, fire-breathing creature with fearfully jagged ridges along its back. In shaky, green letters she had labelled it 'CHARLY'.

She sat back on the dusty attic floor and gazed into space while somewhere behind her the ghoul clanked away. Charlie. He'd been at school for most of her younger years, but she'd written him letters, and he'd written back about his friends and the magic he was learning. He'd gone to Romania, but he brought her the best presents when he came home to visit: a real training whip; a dragon-hide coin purse; books of Romanian legends with brilliantly-illustrated castles and princesses and battle scenes where you could really hear the shouting going on. Then, he had come back to fight for the Order, and had been killed in one of the very first battles of the war. Her mother and father had never really been the same after that. None of them had. She missed him. Gently, she set the drawing aside; she would have it framed, and give it to her mother when the anniversary of Charlie's death came around again.

One carton contained old paperback romances from her teenage years. At random, she pulled one out: _To Wed a Scandalous Spy_. She opened the book at random, and read.

_Rosamunde's bosom heaved, straining at the flimsy fabric of the petticoat that was all she had left of the rich robes she had once worn. "Robert," she gasped. "Take me now! Ravish me!" Robert reached forward, his work-roughened hand trembling, and began – slowly – to unlace her bodice..._

Ginny made a face and tossed the book aside; why had her mother kept all this trash? Her first dress robes were there, from the Yule Ball that Neville had taken her to. Dear Neville, braver than any of them could ever have imagined, was gone too. She thought about the reports of his very last hours: how he had spit Veritaserum into the faces of his captors, before they tortured him to death. And he had never let one word of the Order's plans slip out before he died.

One shoebox was full of old letters from her Hogwarts days: letters from friends, written over the summers; letters from Michael Corner and Dean Thomas that made her blush at their – and her own – stupidity. She had a sudden, horrifying image of what might have happened if she'd been killed in the convenience shop robbery, instead of merely wounded. Her mother would have, eventually, gone through these boxes and found the letters. Knowing Molly, she would have kept them for their sentimental value – probably handed them round at the funeral, so everyone she'd ever known could have one last 'piece of Ginny' to remember her by. She shuddered, and with her wand, set fire to the lot of them, then and there.

At the bottom of the box she came to a small stack of letters from Harry, tied with a broad, grosgrain ribbon and these, as she read them, made her smile. They were full of the same passionate adolescent declarations, but they were different because she had really loved Harry. Harry, however, had come back from the war too used up to be able to love back anymore. Oddly, she had understood. She had let him go then, for good: _really_ let go of him in her heart, knowing that, as Hermione had told her when she was thirteen, she really did need to get on with making a life for herself. Now, she tucked the bundle of letters gently into the bottom of the carton. Someday she might come back for them, but not until her year at Four Winds was over. There would be time enough after that.

The last thing she found was her old guitar, leaning in a corner of the attic, dusty but still in good shape. She didn't know if she even remembered how to play anymore, but after she'd sealed up all the boxes of her childhood, she took the guitar downstairs with her, polished and tuned it, and gave it a try. The strings needed replacing, but she managed to give a fairly good account of herself with "Flow Gently, Sweet Afton" and "Danny Boy". She'd forgotten how much she loved to play. She would take it back to Four Winds with her, and see if she couldn't get back into the swing of it.

One afternoon, she and her mother went to Diagon Alley to do some early Christmas shopping. She knocked off most of her list by lunchtime. Her dad and mum; Ron and Hermione; Bill and Fleur; Fred and Angelina; George and Ainsley. She bought a set of wineglasses for Sarah and Bobby, and something for the office gift swap.

She wanted to get something for Lolly. She didn't suppose Draco would mind if she bought his house-elf a gift, and she really was fond of the little creature. In _The Housewitch's Helper_, she found the very thing: a pretty little beaded votive holder with an Everlasting Candle in it.

That left only Draco.

She didn't know whether or not the two of them would be exchanging Christmas gifts, but she supposed she should get him _something_. The trouble was that men were so hard to shop for. He didn't _need_ anything, and he could afford to buy himself anything he wanted. She wandered the shops, pondering and discarding the usual array of jumpers and watches, cologne and Quidditch paraphernalia. She was getting desperate for inspiration, when she found herself looking into the window of Flourish and Blotts.

Of course. He'd been so taken with _The Scarlet Pimpernel_, and he knew next to nothing about Muggle literature. She'd get him something with sword-fighting and adventure... _The Three Musketeers_ would be just about right. Naturally, Flourish and Blotts wouldn't have anything like that in stock, but later she'd nip into that little bookshop on the Muggle side of The Leaky Cauldron and find him a nice, leather-bound edition with gold embossing. To round it out, she spent half her paycheck on a bottle of 24-year-old Scotch at Potable Potions and More, and felt quite satisfied with herself.

She was in the middle of her toast and coffee the next morning, when the post came. There was a thin package for her, addressed in a spiky, slanting hand she didn't recognize. Instinctively, she knew it was from Draco: the handwriting was all him, angular and precise, and cultivated. Her heart sped up. She slit the parcel's wrapping with her butter knife, and a small book dropped out. There was a letter too, written on thin, vellum notepaper. She unfolded it.

_Dear Ginny,_

_I thought you might want something to read while you recover. Hope this letter finds you well._

_Draco_

She turned the little blue book over in her hands. _Autumn Journal_, by Louis MacNiece. She knew MacNiece; he was an Irish poet. An Irish _Muggle_ poet. Suddenly, absurdly, her heart soared. She clutched the little book reflexively to her chest, and smiled. Draco had been thinking about her.

Her mother, who was scrubbing out a pot at the sink turned around just then. "Someone got some good news," she observed.

"I'm going home today, Mumma," said Ginny.

Molly raised her eyebrows. "Home?"

"I mean Four Winds."

Molly regarded her thoughtfully, but she only said, "Feeling better, are you?"

"Yes, I think so."

"Will you be here for lunch?"

"Yes. I've loads of packing to do; I'm taking a lot back with me. It'll take me all morning."

"All right then. And if you're feeling so good, why don't you peg out that basket of washing for me before you start to pack?"

Ginny got up from the table and kissed her mother on the cheek. "I would love to peg out the washing for you." She gathered up her book and the note and turned to go.

"Ginny," her mother said.

"Hmm?"

Molly dried her hands on her apron and took Ginny's face between her hands. "Be careful."

"Be careful of what?"

"Of your heart."

Ginny was startled. "Don't be silly, Mum. My heart's not in any danger."

"All right," her mother said. "I'm sure it's not. But just remember something, Ginny: A curse is a curse, no matter how pretty the package."

Ginny pulled away from her. "I don't know what you're talking about." And when Molly started to speak again, she interrupted. "I'll go peg out that wash and start packing then, shall I?" And before her mother could say anything else, Ginny hurried from the kitchen.

_A curse is a curse, no matter how pretty the package._ It was one of those trite little sayings that every magical child learned before he got his first wand. What did it have to do with her and the Curse of the Firstborn? Nothing. It had nothing to do with her. She put it firmly from her mind, and went to deal with the basket of wet towels. She spent the rest of the morning packing her things, had a quick lunch with her mother, and Floo'd, with her trunk, back to Four Winds.

Draco wasn't home, but Lolly said he'd only gone to one of his Australian vineyards, and she expected him for dinner. And sure enough, at thirteen minutes past six o'clock, Ginny heard him in the Apparition Port. She stood up from the chair in the foyer, where she'd been waiting, and carefully smoothed her jumper. The door opened.

He stepped out, and stopped in his tracks when he saw her. "Oh, hello."

Ginny felt her face suffuse with colour, and cursed the Weasley tendency to blush at the least provocation. "Hello," she said. Why did she suddenly feel so... she couldn't be feeling... _shy?_ No. No, that was ridiculous. She was never shy.

"I didn't expect you back so soon," he said. "How's the shoulder?"

"Oh! Fine. It hardly ever hurts anymore."

"Good."

They fell into silence, and Ginny squelched an impulse to twist her fingers and giggle nervously. Instead, she said, "Thank you for the book."

"You're welcome. You... er... didn't already have a copy of it, did you?"

"No. And I like MacNiece. He writes lovely poetry. So... thanks."

Silence again. Ginny began to feel very foolish, standing there with nothing to say to him. At last, though, Draco spoke again.

"Did you have a good time at home?"

"Yes, very. I spent a nice, sentimental morning going through some of my old childhood things. Got some Christmas shopping done, did some baking, that kind of thing."

"Ah." Then, "Have you eaten yet?"

"No. Lolly said to expect you, so I thought I'd wait."

"Well, I'm hungry. Shall we?"

Ginny was in an agony of conflicting thoughts, all through dinner. How was it possible that she was so glad to see him, when she knew what he was? He was a criminal. The things he was involved in were, in all likelihood, so loathsome that she ought to utterly despise him. She should refuse to even be in the same room with him. And yet, when he asked her, after pudding, if she felt like going flying she said yes, and couldn't make herself feel anything other than happy at the prospect.

It was a gorgeous night for flying, with the temperature hovering around freezing and no wind at all. The stars were flung with abandon from one end of the horizon to the other, like a million diamonds scattered from a broken necklace, the sliver of white moon lying among them, its pendant.

They flew for an hour, and then came home, breathless with the cold, their faces and fingers numb, exhilarated by the speed of their brooms and the rare, perfect flying conditions. She handed Draco her Galaxy and he locked it into the holder next to his own broom in the shed before they started for the house together.

"Draco," she said, summoning her nerve. "I want to ask you something about Dark of the Moon."

Beside her, she felt him stiffen, though he never broke his stride or altered his expression. "I'm not going to tell you anything more than I already have."

She stopped walking, forcing him to stop and look back at her. She took a deep breath. "I feel like... I have to know."

He made an irritated sound. "Your need to know is not my problem." He started walking again.

She hurried after him, putting her hand on his arm to stop him. "Please, Draco."

He stopped again, and looked down at her gloved hand lying against his cloak. For a long while he was silent. Then he said, "Let's get inside, at least, before we freeze to death."

In the foyer, they stripped off their outside things, and by mutual, unspoken consent – by habit, Ginny realized with some surprise – they both turned towards the library. Lolly had anticipated their arrival, and a tea tray waited on the bar for them. Ginny went to it and poured them each a cup, adding a measure of Firewhiskey to Draco's before she handed it to him.

"Well," he said when they were sitting in front of the fire, "what do you want to ask, then? I'm not –" he added with a warning note in his voice, "– promising to tell you anything."

"I want to know what kind of work you do for The Baron."

"No."

"Why not? I told you I'm not going to turn you over to Special Forces. Don't you believe me?"

"Yes, I believe you."

"Then why won't you tell me?"

"Because I know why you're asking."

Ginny was a little taken aback: she was not entirely sure, herself, why she was so keen on knowing. "Why am I asking, then?"

He put his cup down on the end table with a clatter, and leaned forward, looking at her long and searchingly. "You want to know exactly what kind of evil I'm capable of because you have a need to classify me: to box me neatly up and weigh me in the balance. Once you have my relative merits weighed against my relative sins, you'll be able to label me 'accept' or 'reject', file me neatly away, and get on with your life accordingly."

She started to protest, but he held up his hand. "Don't bother Ginny; it's as true as you're sitting there. Not," he added, "that I blame you for it. It's the way we all function." He crossed to the bar and poured himself another cup of tea, then stood there so that she had to turn around in her chair to see him.

"I can't tell you the whole story," he went on, "I can only tell you the part that will weigh against me. You'd be judging me based on incomplete information. That's hardly fair to me, is it?"

"Draco, I'm not trying to _judge_ you at all."

"Liar," he said easily, and sipped at his tea.

And Ginny could think of nothing to say in reply because he was, of course, absolutely right.

Still, she thought later on when she was alone, was that so bad? She couldn't very well know how she felt about him if she didn't know the whole story, could she?

Mid-December, Ginny had another visit from Harry.

"Have you made any progress finding Draco Malfoy?" he asked her, over tea in her office.

She ignored the question. Instead, she said, "What would you say if I told you Draco Malfoy is _not_ The Baron?"

Harry looked surprised. "Do you know that?"

She nodded.

"How?"

"Harry," she said reprovingly. "Do I ask you to tell me your professional secrets?"

"No," he admitted, "but we'd have to have something like that on pretty good authority before we act. Otherwise we could blow the whole thing."

"I have it from a reliable source," she said firmly. "Draco Malfoy is not The Baron."

"A reliable source?" Harry was sceptical.

"Very reliable. And I can tell you that the man who _is_ The Baron is somewhere in the Isle of Wight, but that's all I _do_ know for right now."

Harry was silent, thinking. Finally, he said, "Well, are you still interested in helping us track him down?"

She hesitated, but only for a moment. "Yes," she said firmly. "Yes, I am."

"All right, then. Why don't you get in touch with me as soon as you know something more."

"I'll do that," she said, smiling.

She thought for a moment that Harry gave her a very strange look. But then he stood up and said, "Well, I guess I should be going."

She walked him to the door of her office, and his hand was on the knob when he hesitated. Again, that odd look on his face.

"Ginny."

"Hm?"

"You wouldn't... er... want to go see a film with me sometime, would you?"

Ginny blinked at him. "Wha... Oh!" She felt herself turn about forty shades of red, and saw that Harry was blushing as well. "I... I'm not sure what to say." She was telling the truth. She couldn't have told him her own last name, if he'd asked it at that moment.

"I mean," he said hastily, "I understand if you don't want to. Things didn't exactly turn out the best for us last time."

"Oh, no Harry, that's not –"

"It was entirely my fault, I know that. I just... I think I'm doing better now. I mean... maybe I'm ready."

She couldn't think of a single thing to say.

"Well, anyhow," he said, turning, if possible, an even brighter shade of red, "it was just a thought: a bad one, probably. Never mind. Bye, Ginny." And he was gone.

She stood there, her hand on the door, and stared at the place where he'd been standing, and wondered why nothing in her life could ever just be simple, for once.

She tried, on two more occasions when Draco was out of the house, to get into his study, but the door was sealed as tightly as though it had been a solid wall. It was frustrating. They taught you, in Auror training, how to blast down walls to get through locking spells like this, but she couldn't very well do that. It would take a trained Spell Weaver, cutting patiently through each tangled thread of magic, to do it without leaving any trace. She simply didn't have the skills.

Meanwhile, Christmas was approaching, and one day after work, she went to the Muggle bookshop and bought a beautiful, red-leather bound edition of _The Three Musketeers_ for Draco. On a Saturday, when he was away from home, she wrapped all her gifts, and spent the rest of the day in the kitchen with Lolly, baking mince pies and shortbread.

"Lolly," she said, when they were mixing fruitcake, "I feel like decorating! Where do you keep the Christmas decorations?"

"Christmas decorations, Mistress?"

"Yes, you know: fairy lights, tinsel for the tree... that sort of thing."

"We is never having a tree at Four Winds, Mistress."

Ginny gaped at her. "No Christmas tree? _Ever?_"

Lolly shook her head, her outsize ears flopping like wings. "No, Mistress. Master Draco is mostly too busy for decorating."

"But... don't you celebrate at _all_?

"Well, Master goes to lots of parties at Christmas time, and on Christmas Day, he is generally working at the vineyards. And as he is not at home then, he permits Lolly to go back to Peru to visit her old mother."

Ginny thought this sounded like a horrible way to spend Christmas. "Well, we're having a tree this year," she declared.

The house-elf looked sceptical. "Lolly is not sure Master is liking that idea, Mistress."

"Master will just have to get used to the idea, Lolly. There's more than one of us in the house now."

When Draco came home, she put the idea to him. To her surprise, he didn't balk at all, but only raised an eyebrow. "I suppose you want me to go out and thrash about the woods cutting it down, and hauling it home and all that?"

"Well... I was sort of hoping you'd go _with_ me. I don't think I can manage to get it home through the forest all by myself."

"All right. But I'm not decorating it. You're on your own with that."

"That's fine. You help me cut it down and get it home, and I'll take care of the rest."

So after dinner that night, they bundled up into cloaks and thick gloves, and trooped out to the forest behind the house. Ginny had already earmarked the tree she wanted: a tall, blue spruce with thick, full boughs, so it was only a matter of felling it. Having helped her father cut down the family Christmas tree for as many years as she could remember, Ginny was adept at Chopping Charms. Draco was useless at it, declaring that he had never heard of such a charm in his life: his family had always bought their Christmas trees ready-cut. It was up to her to do it, then, which she did without much difficulty.

Getting it home was another matter. Once it was lying on the ground, it looked a good deal bigger than it had while it was upright. It took their combined Levitation Charms to wrangle it out of the forest, across the snow-crusted garden, through the front door, and into the sitting room. By the time they had it standing, its tip brushing the high ceiling, they were both disheveled, sweaty, and more than a little irritable with each other.

"Barbaric custom, this," Draco muttered. "Whoever thought it would be nice to bring wildlife inside the house at Christmastime ought to be executed."

"Oh stop grousing," she told him. "It's the first and the last time you're ever going to have to do this. Besides, it'll look lovely when it's finished."

"You're surely not going to decorate it tonight?"

"No, I'm about done in. I'll do it tomorrow. I'll have to pick up some decorations first anyway."

Draco looked alarmed. "You're not going to muck up the whole place with plastic Father Christmases and singing reindeers and things like that, are you?"

She was offended. "I do have _some_ taste, Draco."

"And no mistletoe either!"

"No, I wouldn't dream of it."

"Good. Just so we're agreed."

He was right, of course. Mistletoe was not for couples like them. She was confused enough about the way she felt: mistletoe would only complicate things further. It was unthinkable. And yet, as she drifted off to sleep that night, Ginny couldn't help but feel the tiniest bit hurt that Draco had been so adamant about not having it in the house. Not that she cared, of course, but it would be nice to think he didn't find her _entirely_ repulsive.

Nearly every morning now, the post brought an invitation to some Christmas party or other. Ginny was surprised to learn that Draco had friends: lots of friends, apparently. When she – rather indelicately – told him this, he only quirked his mouth in that way of his: that way that was almost-a-smile-but-not-quite.

"I haven't always lived like a hermit."

And she suddenly understood that their relative seclusion from the rest of the world was because of _her_. Of course Draco didn't want all his friends knowing about their marriage; no more did she want her own friends knowing. Not that there was anything wrong with it, but being discreet about it did help to avoid sticky explanations and the tiresome, well-meant condolences that would surely come from every direction.

She picked up the invitation that had come that morning. "Mike and Rosemary Peach? I don't recognize their names."

"No, I don't imagine you would."

"I don't recognize any of the names on the invitations that've come. Somehow, I always pictured you still hobnobbing with your old Slytherin pals."

"Did you? Well, the war changed a lot of things, I suppose."

"Don't you ever see any of your school friends any more?"

"Oh yes. I keep in touch with a few of them."

"But... not this year?"

"Not this year."

Ginny wondered if Pansy Parkinson was one of the ones he kept in touch with. She stuffed down a wholly unreasonable surge of resentment. She was not going to ask him. Instead, she said, "It seems a shame not to go to _any_ Christmas parties. Isn't there at least one we could go to, where no one would think it strange for us to be there together?"

He looked surprised. "You want to go to a Christmas party full of people you don't know?"

"Well... no, I suppose not."

"David and Fiona Gordon generally have one every year," he said. "I'm surprised the invitation hasn't come yet. If it's still on, do you want to go to that?"

"Oh, yes! And will Betsy and Lowen be there too?"

"Of course."

"Then I'll be perfectly comfortable. And it really _will_ make it seem more like Christmas."

And serendipitously, the Gordons' invitation came the very next morning.

The party was set for Christmas Eve, which was a Thursday, and Ginny took the day off from work. She got her hair trimmed, and her nails done, and then went and spent a mind-blowing amount of Draco's money at Natty Toggs' shop. An hour under Mrs Selvedge's care, and she was the proud owner of the cream-coloured robe she'd been too cautious to buy before. It had silver bodice clasps, and laces at the shoulders, and a marvellous, long slit up one leg... and Ginny didn't care about spilling soup on herself this time. She knew she wouldn't. Somehow, this time, the robe seemed just perfect for her.

David and Fiona Gordon lived in London, on a hill near Kensington Gardens, in a grand, sweeping old house they called Sunnyside. Ginny, stepping into the foyer on Christmas Eve, thought that she had never felt quite so _welcomed_ by a house before. It was charming: all restored antiques and warm, polished wood, and holly and evergreen boughs.

Betsy Kincaid found them at once, and linked her arm through Ginny's. "Come here, love," she said. "There are some people you just _have_ to meet." Somehow, Draco melted away into the crowd, and Ginny found herself at Betsy's mercy, being introduced to a dizzying array of people, none of whom she recognized five minutes after she met them. Someone pressed a champagne flute into her hand. There was Christmas music coming from a ballroom somewhere, and everything was marvellously noisy and festive.

Two hours into it, though, Ginny was beginning to tire of the crowd. She'd had three glasses of champagne, which always had the effect of making her feel morose, and she couldn't find Draco anywhere. It was beastly hot in the crush of people, and she thought if she had to smile at one more stranger, her face would crack. Betsy steered her toward the ballroom.

It was warm and bright in the room: half of London was there, by the look of it. Ginny craned her neck, searching the crowd for Draco's blond head. She didn't see him anywhere. Someone tapped her on the shoulder, and she whirled around hopefully, but it wasn't him. It was some man she'd never seen before in her life.

"Pardon me, miss," he said, "but I was wondering if you had plans for the next dance?"

"What?" she said stupidly.

"Dance," he said. "Would you like to dance with me?"

It was the last thing in the world she wanted, but she couldn't think of a decent way to tell him so, so instead she said, "Yes, that would be lovely," and followed him onto the dance floor. He was an entirely forgettable young man, handsome in an innocuous, vapid sort of way. While they danced, he made frequent allusions to his 'American business interests', hoping, no doubt, to pass himself off as someone wildly fascinating. Ginny left him gratefully, at the end of the song and couldn't, for the life of her, remember what he'd told her his name was.

There followed a succession of half a dozen or eight men just like him. It seemed every time she escaped one of them, another appeared before her, asking her to dance. Her feet were beginning to ache, and she couldn't see that Draco was anywhere in the room. Maybe he had left her here. Maybe he had abandoned her to this seemingly endless stream of insipid men who seemed determined to dance her to death. She wondered if men had always been this boring, and if so, why she was only now noticing it for the first time.

And then she saw him. She was midway through a waltz with some balding person who smelt of bourbon and sweat, when she saw a flash of white-gold hair near the doorway. It was Draco. No one else had hair that colour; it had to be him. She kept her eyes pinned on him as he moved through the crowd. The damn song was endless. Her partner was saying something that she didn't even pretend to listen to. He stepped on her foot, and apologized. He whirled her around. She felt dizzy and a little sick, overwhelmed by the crowd and the heat and the noise. But at last it was over. She fled the sweaty man, and made for her husband.

When she reached him, he was talking to David Gordon. Ginny plucked at his sleeve a little desperately. He looked down at her, and she hissed, "Get me out of here!"

Without missing a beat, Draco said smoothly, "Excuse us, Gordon. We're going to step outside and get some air." He took her by the arm, and Ginny gratefully allowed him to lead her from the room.

They found a door, and burst out together into the cold, London night. Ginny leaned against the stone wall of the house and closed her eyes, drinking in great gulps of fresh air.

"Not having the great time you expected, eh?" Draco observed dryly.

She opened her eyes. "I don't know what's the matter with me. Usually, I do all right in crowds. I think it was the heat that got to me."

"Want to walk?"

"Yes, all right."

They followed the drive out the front gate, and onto the quiet city street. Once out of the heat of the house, Ginny began to shiver.

"Cold?" he asked. "You want a Warming Charm." He pulled out his wand and swept it over her, and she immediately felt better.

"Thank you." A taxi went by, and then a bus, but after that there was no one else except themselves. "I don't know when I've seen London this quiet at night," Ginny said.

"Everyone's shut up in their homes, getting ready for Christmas tomorrow."

"Oh, right. How does it go? The children were nestled, all snug in their beds..."

"Look," Draco said, pointing. In a shop window was a tiny, toy village set up around a four-foot high Christmas tree. Little lights winked on in the buildings, and around it all ran a train: round and round and round. They stepped under the shop's awning to get a closer look.

And then, with no warning whatsoever, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her.

It was a gentle kiss, a slow, exploring kiss, and Ginny was certain that her heart fully stopped beating for a moment. And then it began to pound, and then to soar. He backed her against the rough stone wall of the shop, and then his hands were on her face, and in her hair, and the kiss was no longer gentle, but febrile and electric –

He broke away first, and the only thing she could do was to stare, wide-eyed and shocked. Shocked that he had kissed her so feverishly, and shocked that she had kissed him right back, the same way.

He dropped his hands to his sides and stepped back. "Mistletoe," he said, and nodded at the shop awning above his head. Dumbly, she followed his gaze. A kissing ball of evergreen and mistletoe hung directly above them; she hadn't even seen it until now. He shrugged. "It gets me every year: I never could resist a pretty girl under the mistletoe. Don't take it personally."

She could hardly believe her ears. _Don't take it personally?_ Hadn't the kiss affected him _at all_?

But apparently, inexplicably, it hadn't. Because he was leading her away from the shop, down the sidewalk, saying something banal about the weather, while her head was still spinning, and her body still tingling from that kiss.

_That kiss._

She stopped abruptly, and interrupted him. "I think I'd like to go home, if you don't mind."

"Mind? No, of course not. Gordon can bring our cloaks along to us when they come over tomorrow. There's a Port around here somewhere; maybe that's it, on the corner." It was. Wordlessly, they stepped into it, and wordlessly they stepped out of their own port at Four Winds, just as the clock in the foyer struck midnight. Ginny looked up at it. It was something from a dream, another world.

"Happy Christmas, Draco," she said dully.

"Right. Happy Christmas to you too. And you ought to be getting to bed, don't you think? You're looking pale, just now."

"Really? I feel fine," she lied. "Just tired, I expect. I'll be all right in the morning."

And surprisingly, she was. She woke early, as she always had on Christmas day, and lay in bed, thinking. Draco was right not to get all worked up about a simple kiss under the mistletoe. No doubt he had forgotten the whole incident already. She had been overtired the night before, and had drunk too much champagne at the party. She would put it out of her mind right now. The Gordons and Kincaids were coming over later, for a midday dinner, and she still had their gifts to wrap, and she wanted to give Lolly a hand in the kitchen, besides.

She got up, showered, and dressed. Her mother had stopped knitting the Weasley family jumpers when the last of her children had left school, and pulling on a green cashmere top, Ginny felt a twinge of regret that the homely old tradition had gone by the wayside. They would all be at the Burrow today, everyone but her; her parents would make her excuses. Draco had assured her that he didn't mind if she spent Christmas day with her family, but whenever she thought of him spending Christmas at some vineyard or other, all alone, she just couldn't bring herself to leave.

She took Lolly's gift downstairs with her, but left Draco's in her room. It seemed silly to put them under the tree, when there were just the two of them, and anyhow, she didn't want to give them to him if he hadn't got her anything.

He wasn't downstairs yet, so she took Lolly's gift into the kitchen and gave it to her. The house-elf tore away the wrapping paper, and promptly burst into loud, squelching sobs.

"Oh, Mistress!" she wailed. "Nobody is ever giving Lolly anything so beautiful in all her life!" She flung herself at Ginny's knees, her face awash with tears of joy.

Ginny was embarrassed. It was only a candle holder, after all. She patted Lolly gingerly on the back. "It's nothing, Lolly. Happy Christmas."

"Ha-a-appy Christmas, Mistress!" Lolly howled. Gently, Ginny disentangled herself from the creature, and escaped back to the dining room, the house-elf's rapturous hiccupping following her all the way.

Draco was there and Ginny saw, beside her plate, a little, gold-wrapped gift. He stood, as he always did, when she came into the room.

"Happy Christmas, Draco," she said, as she had last night.

"The same to you."

She went to her chair and picked up the little box. "Is this for me?"

"Well, it's not for Lolly, is it?"

"Can I open it now?"

"When the devil else would you open it?"

She shook it, listening. Nothing. Carefully, she untied the ribbon. "This looks lovely. Did you wrap it yourself?"

He snorted. "I shouldn't think so."

She frowned. He was almost being rude, this morning. She glanced up at him, and for just a moment, caught a glimpse of something behind his eyes, and she understood. Whatever the gift was, he was afraid she wouldn't like it. He was... _nervous?_

She stopped, and shook the package again. "Hmm... jewellery? But it's not big enough to be a necklace..." She turned it over in her hands. "It could be a pendant. Or a pin. Or..." She placed it carefully back beside her plate, and pretended to regard it warily. "Then again, it is from Draco Malfoy, my old childhood enemy, so maybe it's not something flattering after all." She tapped her chin and spoke, as if to herself. "I'll have to be on my guard. Maybe a Revealing Charm –" She pulled her wand and pointed it at the package.

"Will you quit making a bloody production of it, and open it, please?" he snapped.

Ginny favoured him with a beatific smile. "Well, if I must." But any thought of teasing him went out of her mind when she pulled the top off the box. It was a pair of earrings. Beautiful, elf-carved, jade earrings. She held one up to the light. It was a little, pendant ball, so intricately wrought it might have been made from green gossamer. "Oh, Draco!" She felt tears spring to her eyes. "I've never seen anything so gorgeous!"

He looked pleased, and she thought, a little relieved.

She fumbled the gold hoops she'd been wearing out of her ears, and put in the new ones. "How do they look?" she asked, holding up her hair, and turning her head.

"Lovely," he told her. But when she glanced at him, he didn't seem to be looking at the earrings at all.

She felt herself flush, and dropped her hair. "I'm going to go look in the mirror. And wait here – I have something for you, as well." She ran up to her room and examined her reflection in the mirror. The little, delicate balls were so thinly carved they appeared nearly translucent against the red of her hair. She smiled at her reflection, and a girl with sparkling eyes smiled back at her. She retrieved Draco's gifts, and dashed back downstairs.

He seemed to really like the book and the Scotch. "You'll have to read it to me, you know," he told her.

She laughed. "All right. I'll read the first chapter right now, before everyone gets here." And she did, sitting at the table, among the remains of their breakfast, while she drank a second, and then a third cup of coffee, and Draco listened intently.

And later that evening, when the Kincaids and the Gordons had finally left for home, she read him a second chapter, this time in the library, in front of a fire that burned low in the hearth. When she had finished it, she yawned and stretched.

"And now, I think _you_ should read to _me_."

He contemplated her. "All right."

Ginny held _The Three Musketeers_ out to him, but he shook his head. Instead, he picked up the little, blue volume of MacNiece that was lying on the coffee table. She looked on, amused. Draco was going to read poetry? Now _there_ was something she never thought she'd see in her lifetime. He opened the book, and she settled back to listen.

_"September has come, it is hers   
Whose vitality leaps in the autumn   
Whose nature prefers   
Trees without leaves and a fire in the fireplace.   
So I give her this month and the next   
Though the whole of my year should be hers who has rendered already   
So many of its days intolerable or perplexed   
But so many more so happy.   
Who has left a scent on my life, and left my walls   
Dancing over and over with her shadow   
Whose hair is twined in all my waterfalls   
And all of London littered with remembered kisses."_

Ginny's heart was pounding strangely when he closed the book and set it aside. Draco stood up and looked down at her, his face shadowed and unfathomable in the firelight.

"Well, it's been a busy day, and I'm for bed. Good night, Ginny. Merry Christmas." He crossed to the door, and opened it.

"Draco –"

He turned, expectantly, and she couldn't think what she had called him back for.

"Merry Christmas."

After he left the room, Ginny sat, gazing into the red coals of the fireplace, and thinking.

_All of London littered with remembered kisses._

It was a long time before she got up and went to bed, herself.

_**A/N:** "To Wed a Scandalous Spy" is the actual title of an unfortunate novel I picked up in an airport once, but which I promise you I did not finish reading. If I could remember the author's name, I would certainly credit her. The excerpt from it, however, is a creation of my own hem fertile imagination._

_Excerpt from "Autumn Journal" by Louis MacNiece._

_Thank you to my sister **Gracie**, for her valuable insights and most gratifying swooning over this chapter._


	15. Chapter 15

_**A/N:** Thanks to **Gabriele**, for formatting this, and all my chapters. Look for my story "Curse of the Firstborn: Outtakes" for a few supplemental goodies._

**Chapter 15**

_Daily Prophet, Thursday, 5 January_

_The Muggle Underground in London was rocked last night when four men, armed with wands, burst into a car during the evening commute, and began hurling hexes at the occupants. In the melee, more than two dozen people were injured and two more, a man and a child whose names have not been released, remain in critical condition at a Muggle hospital._

_While Muggle authorities are not speculating publicly as to the cause of the attack, Auror Special Forces believe it can be traced to the Wizarding underworld organisation known as the Dark of the Moon Society._

_"We think they were targeting Dirk Cheevers," says one source, who asked not to be named. "Cheevers is the Auror Special Forces agent who heads up the anti-DMS task force. He's been a thorn in the side of the Dark of the Moon Society for years now."_

_Cheevers was travelling by Tube on Monday, as he was taking a Muggle guest to his home for dinner. He was sitting in the car in which the attack took place, but was not seriously injured. He could not be reached for comment._

_"It's amazing really, when you see the state of the car, that no one was killed," says Bridget O'Donnell, a chambermaid at _The Leaky Cauldron_, who was riding the Tube with her Muggle cousin that night. O'Donnell sustained a broken arm in the incident._

_The MLES is urging anyone with any information about the attack to come forward._

Ginny frowned, and dropped the paper. She leaned her elbows onto her desk and rubbed at her temples. It wasn't the first time she had read something like this in the news. And every time, it brought back the question of just who this man she had married really was. On the one hand he was thoughtful, and considerate of her: he helped her plant flowers, and read her poetry. On the other hand he was associated with the kinds of people who attacked Muggle Underground cars and put little children in the hospital. Life would be so much simpler if _he_ were simpler: if he were the kind of man she could just let herself love. Because in so many ways, it would be easy to fall in love with Draco; sometimes she feared that she was halfway there already.

But the truth of the matter was he was _not_ the kind of man she could afford to love. She had learnt early on in life – after her first year at Hogwarts, when she had been possessed by that horrible diary – to make decisions with her head, and not her heart.

She reached into the front of her robes, and pulled out a fine, silver chain. She had made a hole in the little medallion with the Mercury's wings on it, and had taken to wearing it around her neck all the time. Now she examined it closely, for the hundredth time, hoping it would yield some clue to the identity of the man who had given it to her. As always, there was nothing new there.

Since the night he had rescued her from the fire in the convenience shop, Quicksilver had occupied Ginny's thoughts more than she cared to admit. Sarah teased her that she had a crush on him, though that was ridiculous. But reading about Dark of the Moon's attack on the Underground car had shaken her: sometimes, in the face of reports like this one in the _Daily Prophet_, she needed to be reminded that there were really good people in the world. Heroes like Quicksilver. Maybe if she dwelt enough on the mystery of Quicksilver it would get her mind off Draco, who was a puzzle she had begun to despair of ever solving. Suddenly, she badly wanted to know who he was. She was a trained Auror; surely she could track this man down?

She dropped the medallion back down the neck of her robes, and pulled a piece of scratch parchment toward herself. At the top, she wrote the word: _QUICKSILVER_. Underneath that, she wrote:

_1. Is a wizard (wand residue always found at rescue sites.)   
2. Is a man (picked me up: had definite man arms.)   
3. Does things most normal wizards could not do alone.   
4._

Here, she stopped, wracking her brain for any detail she might have forgotten. She didn't know anything else about him. She threw down her quill, and went to the door of her office.

"Lorelei!"

The pretty assistant looked up. "Yes?"

"Can you get me any files the MLES has on Quicksilver? I want newspaper clippings, reports, rumours, photographs of the signs he's left… anything. And make copies for me, please. I'm going to be using them for a long time."

"I can do that."

"I have an appointment this morning in Lisbon, to build security wards around a children's home. I should be back after lunch. Can you have them ready for me then?"

"I think so."

"Good. Because I'm going to run this man to ground if it takes me a year to do it."

Lorelei looked surprised, and a little impressed. "All right Ms Weasley, I'll get right on it," and hurried away.

Ginny watched her go, and felt the stirrings of real excitement. There was a hero out there. She would find him.

Sarah's wedding was only four months away, and Ginny began going round to her flat a couple of nights a week, to flip through bridal magazines, and make plans about caterers, and florists, and bridesmaids' dresses. It was almost like old times, until – inevitably, at six-thirty – Bobby would show up for supper. Ginny always left then, and flooed back to Four Winds. It wasn't that she didn't like Bobby; she liked him very much. But he and Sarah were in their own little world, and so obviously, fantastically in love with each other that it gave her a strange, hollow feeling to watch them. It made her feel cast off and adrift somehow: as though she was reaching for something that was just out of her grasp.

She and Draco went flying almost every night now, after supper. And one night, when the snow-covered Cairngorms were awash with the light of a brilliant, full moon, he said to her, "Let's go see the waterfall. You can get your question answered."

"What question?"

"About whether or not it freezes up in the winter."

Ginny liked the idea. By broomstick, it was only a matter of a minute's ride over the forest, to where the waterfall came out of the fell side. She rode beside Draco, following his lead when he dropped down into the clearing, and came to a hover.

The waterfall _was_ frozen. It hugged the wall of the cliff in a thick, irregular, blue-white column that dropped all the way to the pool at the bottom, which was frozen too, its surface blanketed with snow. The whole thing was like a Muggle photograph: motion arrested and captured in a split second to be examined and enjoyed for a long time to come.

"I've never seen anything like it," she told him. The night was calm, and their voices carried easily through the still air.

"Let's touch it." Draco flew to the very top of the falls, and she followed him.

"Oh look," she said, "it comes out of a little cave."

"In the spring it's not a cave at all; it's just a natural culvert, full to the top with rushing water. It's only now, when the river's been slowed up by the gradual freezing, that there's any room at all. Want to go in?"

Ginny eyed it sceptically. It seemed very small. "Will we fit?"

"If we fly flat to our brooms we will. At least, for the first bit. If it gets any narrower, we'll have to back out."

"Let's have a go, then."

Draco went first, flying slow and close to his handle, and still his knees skimmed the ice along the cave's floor. She followed him, keeping her head low. It was a steep, uphill slope, and the air was much colder in here. In a moment, however, the space widened, and suddenly, they were in the open air again, flying along the flat surface of a little, frozen burn. They straightened, and hovered again. All around them the forest rose, the trees deep-shadowed and gilded with moonlight.

He looked at her. "You know what that was, that we just came through, don't you?"

"What?"

"It would make a perfect ice slide."

She stared at him. "Draco, don't be stupid. It drops off into nothing: we'll kill ourselves."

"No we won't. Not if we keep a tight hold on our brooms. Look, we'll sit on our brooms, and lay flat back in the tunnel. When we shoot out over the waterfall, we just sit up and start flying."

She started to laugh. "You're crazy! I don't think you'll do it."

"Are you calling me a coward?"

"Well, if the shoe fits…"

"It was my idea! You're the one going on about how dangerous it is. I don't think _you'll_ do it."

"I'll do it if you will. But you have to go first."

"Now you're being missish."

"No! I just have a healthy instinct for survival, is all. I want to know you can make it through without killing yourself before I try."

"All right, Miss Caution. Watch and see how it's done." Draco manoeuvred himself around so he was facing the mouth of the tunnel again then let the broom drop to the surface of the burn, which had been swept bare of snow by the winter winds. "Careful, it's slippery." He lay flat back against the broom handle, holding onto it between his legs, looking up at her. "Give me a push."

"You'll break your neck."

"No, I won't. Just push me."

She got behind him, and put her hands on his shoulders, bracing herself with her own broom. He was off like a shot, swallowed up into the black mouth of the cave. Ginny watched the place where he had disappeared, a trifle anxiously. What if he misjudged, and fell off his broom, or something? But in another second, she heard a triumphant whoop from the other end, echoing faintly, and sounding very far away. She smiled.

"Come on!" she heard him call, closer this time, and knew he was shouting into the other end of the tunnel.

"All right, but move out of the way so I don't knock your head off!" she called back.

She lowered her broom to the ice, and lay back, gripping the handle tightly between her legs. She was going to kill herself, she just knew it. She took a deep breath and squeezed her eyes shut. With the heels of her boots, she inched herself forward on the ice until she hit the right slope, and shot forward. She heard herself scream as the black tunnel walls flew past her, and then she was in the air, plummeting in a free fall to the ground below. Automatically, she jerked upright, pulling up on her handle. At once, she levelled out, and came to a hover. She clung onto the broom for dear life while her head cleared, and she got her bearings. Her heart was racing, and she gasped for breath. Above her, she heard Draco yell again. She looked up at him, and he punched a fist into the air. Victory! She laughed and flew up to join him.

"How was it?" he asked.

"Terrifying! Incredible. Let's do it again!"

And they did, over and over, trying to see how close they could come to the ground below before pulling out of their drops. They flew until their faces and hands were numb and then, reluctantly, they turned for home.

In the foyer, they stripped off their outdoor clothes.

"I need some hot cocoa," Ginny said.

"Give Lolly a shout."

She raised her eyebrows at him. "Don't be ridiculous: I'll make it myself."

"Ginny," he said, half-exasperated, "that's what we have a house-elf for."

"Nonsense. Lolly's asleep by now: I'm not waking her up to do something I'm perfectly capable of doing myself." She turned for the kitchen. "Are you coming?"

"Will you make me some as well?"

She smiled. "Done."

In the kitchen, she took down mugs, and a saucepan, and milk. She measured out the cocoa and sugar, and set it on the hob to stir itself. She looked over her shoulder at Draco, who was sitting at the oak table watching her. "You might make us some cinnamon toast," she said.

"I wouldn't begin to know how."

She rolled her eyes. "It's just about the easiest thing in the world. Suppose you learn now, and then you'll have a useful skill under your belt for cold nights next winter, when I'm not around."

"I have a lot of useful skills!"

"Maybe, but none of them seem to be very domestic, do they? Here, get out some bread." She nodded her head toward the breadbox on the sideboard, and with a great show of reluctance, Draco went and retrieved it.

"All right, now what?"

"Well, you'll need to slice it, of course."

"With a knife?"

She rolled her eyes again. Step by step, she walked him through the intricacies of making cinnamon toast, while she kept an eye on the cocoa. When it was finished, they loaded it all onto a tray, and Draco carried it through to the library.

They settled into their chairs, and Draco stirred up the fire, while she picked up _The Three Musketeers_ and found the place where they had left off. They had only two chapters left to read, and by the time she had read the last sentence and closed the book, the mantle clock was chiming eleven.

She yawned, and stretched like a cat. "If I don't go to bed soon, I'll sleep right through work tomorrow." And yet she was reluctant to go. It had been such a… _nice_ evening. She waited, half-hoping he would ask her to stay, and play a game of cards or something, but he didn't, and after another moment, she told him goodnight and went to bed.

It was a long, bitterly cold winter. More than once, blizzards shut down the Apparition system across northern Scotland. On those nights, they used the Floo and visited the Kincaids or the Gordons. Sometimes, their friends came to visit them at Four Winds. Fiona was an accomplished pianist, and Betsy played the harp, so the six of them would gather in the sitting room, where Draco had a gorgeous, black Steinway grand that neither he nor Ginny knew how to play. At Fiona's insistence, Ginny always brought out her guitar and played with the sisters, while their husbands played chess, or talked by the fire at the other end of the room.

Other nights, she and Draco stayed home alone, and played Dragons and Dwarves. No money actually ever changed hands between them, but they kept a running tally of their winnings and losses. By the end of February, Ginny was far in arrears, the tally sheet showing that she owed Draco the horrific sum of two hundred and seventeen Galleons, seven Sickles, and three Knuts. When she protested that she would never be able to pay this, Draco gallantly offered to forgive her the three Knuts, just to prove to her how generous he was.

And so the winter passed.

Meanwhile, Ginny was amassing quite a file on Quicksilver. Suddenly, as so often happens in life, now that she was looking for him, she saw his name everywhere. The _Daily Prophet_ had a new report once or twice a week, and _Witch Weekly_ had named him their Year's Most Eligible Bachelor. Every news article she found, every snippet of speculation, every photograph of the Mercury's wings found at rescue scenes, Ginny clipped and studied avidly. She interviewed eyewitnesses, who never turned out to have seen very much at all. She had added to her list:

_4. Rescues only Muggles_

But she knew little more. It was all very frustrating, yet the very elusiveness of the man made her all the more determined to find him.

In mid-March, it happened again.

_Daily Prophet, Friday, 17 March_

_The international Wizarding underworld society known as Dark of the Moon is claiming responsibility for last week's bombing of a village in Afghanistan that left twenty-two people dead, including six children, and another three hundred wounded. Sources say the village was home to Poppy Smack, an opium dealer with ties to the DMS._

_"He wouldn't pay up," says one source, who asked not to be named, "so everyone else had to." Auror Special Forces are continuing to investigate._

Ginny sat at her desk, staring at the newspaper, and thought she might be sick. This could not go on. If Draco was involved in this sort of thing, he was a monster. And she… well, she finally admitted the truth of it to herself, because to deny it would have been ridiculous. She loved him.

She had not meant to love him, it had simply crept up on her, like a virus that had settled into her bones, and changed the way she felt about everything. And sometimes, the way he looked at her, she thought that maybe… But she would not let herself go there. That way led to too many complications. She hated this thing he was a part of; even if Draco felt the same way about her, she could _not_ let her heart run away with her. It was all so tangled-up and confusing.

She thought ahead to September, when their year and a day would be over with, and she would leave Draco behind her for good. It would be the hardest thing she had ever done. The hardest, and the most right. And she _would_ leave, there was no question about that. Hang the heartache that was bound to come with it: peace of mind was worth something too.

It was easier to feel angry than to feel so… wounded about this, so Ginny nursed her anger toward Draco all day long. When she stepped out of the Apparition Port after work that night, the first thing she saw was his travelling cloak flung over the back of a chair in the foyer. He was home then: good. Because she had a thing or two to say to him.

She flew up over the stairs and changed into jeans and a jumper, and brushed out her hair with a vengeance. She regarded herself in the mirror. It had been a cold walk from the office to the Apparition Port on the corner, and her cheeks were still glowing pink, her eyes bright with the fury she had been feeding all day. She did not look like someone to be tangled with, she thought with satisfaction. Draco had just better hope he wasn't involved in this Afghanistan bombing business.

She swept into the library in high dudgeon. Draco looked up from the bar, where he was pouring a whiskey.

"Oh, hello," he said mildly. "Want a drink?"

"No," she said. "I want to ask you a question."

"Oh dear," he said, with mock wariness, and held up his glass. "Should I make this a double, then?"

"Don't be pert," she told him crossly. "I read in the _Daily Prophet_ about Dark of the Moon bombing that village in Afghanistan."

"Oh?"

"Don't _'Oh?'_ me, like you didn't know anything about it," she snapped.

"I did not attack that village, Ginny."

"No," she said, "I _know_ you didn't attack the village!" His mildness infuriated her. She wanted him to be as distraught about it as she herself was, and instead there he stood, calmly putting the cover on the ice bucket as though nothing in the world were the matter.

"Good," he told her, "then there's nothing for us to discuss."

"Oh yes there is!"

"Why? Whatever's the matter?"

"The matter is," she said, beginning, even to her own ears, to sound a trifle hysterical, "that you are part of the group of people who _did_ attack the village!"

And then, to her mortification, there were hot tears in her eyes and before she could stop them they welled up and began to spill down her cheeks. She tried to blink them back, but there were too many of them, and then, horribly, a sob rose up in her chest and escaped, and she was _crying_. Crying in front of Draco. It was too humiliating; she covered her face with her hands and turned her back to him.

It was the last thing she had expected to do. She was angry: furious with him. So why had her temper so traitorously deserted her, left her shoulders shaking uncontrollably, while tears flowed over her face, and through her fingers, and made her nose clog all up? It was beginning to run, and she didn't even have a handkerchief with her.

She gave a great, noisy sniffle, and then she felt Draco right behind her. A handkerchief appeared over her right shoulder, waving like a little, white flag of truce. She snatched it angrily from his fingers. She blew her nose, and took several deep breaths until her sobs subsided, then mopped up her eyes, grateful that she hadn't worn mascara today. When she was certain she had herself under control, she turned to face him.

He put his hands, strong and gentle, on her shoulders, and she had to close her eyes against a fresh onslaught of tears that tried to rise up in her throat.

"What's the matter?" he said.

She gestured fruitlessly with the handkerchief, too uncertain of her voice to speak.

He pulled her against his chest, and held her there, stroking her hair while the tears she thought she had finished with came back, quieter this time, but just as copious, and soaked into the fine wool of his robes. He was warm and safe-feeling, smelling of some heavenly cologne, imported no doubt, and costing the moon. She gave a little hiccup, and sighed into him.

"Why can't you just be _good?_" she said, when she managed to find her voice.

"That's what my mother always wanted to know." She could feel the rumble of his voice, where her face rested against his chest.

"Don't be flippant, Draco." Her voice was still muffled against the front of his robe, and he was still stroking her hair, making it difficult for her to remember why she was so angry with him. She pulled back, and wiped her eyes and nose again with the handkerchief, which was beginning to be a little soggy.

He kept his arms around her, and she let him.

"All right, then, I won't be flippant," he promised. "You were saying…?"

"I was saying, why do you have to be involved in the Dark of the Moon Society?"

"I've already told you why."

"Yes, I _know_ that! I just wish…" She gazed steadfastly at his chest, and tried to formulate it into words in her own mind. "I wish you _wanted_ to be good."

"I _am_ good. I pay my taxes on time, and give to Christmas charities, and always remember to dance with the hostess at dinner parties. You don't think I'm good?"

Oh, she wanted to kick him! "Stop making a joke out of this! People died in that village, Draco. Six of them were children, and Dark of the Moon was responsible: doesn't that make you feel terrible?"

"Honestly?" He shrugged. "No, it doesn't."

She felt a chill wrap itself around her, and stepped back, shrugging off his arms, and folding her own in front of her. Barricading herself against him. "How can you be so cold and unfeeling?"

He sighed, and turned and went back to the bar, where he picked up his whiskey tumbler, and drank from it. "I'm not cold and unfeeling. I just… In theory, yes, it's unfortunate that those people were in the wrong place at the wrong time. But I didn't know them, and I'd be lying to you if I said I was moved by what happened to them."

She glared at him.

"Oh, get off your high horse, Ginny! Can you honestly tell me you're moved to tears by every tragedy you read about in the newspapers? I know you're not! But I don't go around accusing you of being 'cold and unfeeling,' do I?"

"No, Draco, but I don't _plan_ for tragedies to happen. I don't _create_ them. That's the difference between us. You're part of the organisation that bombed that village and killed those children. You're culpable."

"That incident was nothing to do with me."

"Well I wouldn't know that, would I? Because you won't tell me anything about your involvement in Dark of the Moon."

He studied her narrowly. At last, he said, "I'm not going through a repeat of this conversation every time you read the words 'Dark of the Moon' in the newspapers. You want to know what I do in the wizard mafia, Ginny? I've told you once that it will put you in danger to know. I'll say it once again, and then it's on your own head. You can't be enlightened and be safe too: it's one or the other. So which do you want?"

She didn't hesitate: she had to know. "Tell me."

"Then sit down." She obeyed, and without asking, he went to the bar and poured her a glass of wine, and brought it to her. He did not sit, himself, but leaned against the mantelpiece and looked down at her. Then, very simply, he said, "I'm a hired killer."

In spite of herself, she started. There had been a tiny part of her that had held out the hope that something like this wasn't true. But there it was. She forced herself to speak coolly, although she felt the words would choke her. "Who do you kill?"

He shrugged. "Whoever the Baron tells me to kill. Most of the time, I don't even know them. Almost always, they're men who are high up in other mafia families, who've crossed my boss the wrong way."

"Crossed him _how?_"

He took a sip of his drink, and said, "Bad debts; people who steal from him. One or two of them have been people who threatened his life and had to be got rid of."

She felt ill. Disembodied. He could not stand here and talk so cavalierly of killing people. He was not the man she had spent the winter reading to, and playing cards with, and teaching to make cinnamon toast in the kitchen.

"I asked you once before," she said her voice a little shaky, "and you didn't answer me: Do you _like_ being a part of this?"

"I like being _alive_," he said wryly.

"And… to stay alive, you have to do this."

"We've been through all of this before." His voice was impatient.

She thought for a moment. "What if you didn't _have_ to be a part of it? What if there were a way out?"

"There isn't. Don't go trying to save me, Ginny; it won't work."

"I'm not saying there is. I just want to know, _if_ there were, would you take it?"

He did not hesitate. "Of course I would."

"So… you only do this as a means of survival?"

"What?"

"You kill other people so the Baron won't kill you."

"Yes, I suppose you could say that's true."

"I think that's terrible."

His face took on a hard look. "Do you? Well it's lucky I never asked for your opinion, isn't it? You're the one who just _had_ to know: don't blame me if you don't like what you heard."

She sat forward. "Don't get all pissy with me, Draco. Try the shoe on the other foot and see if you like the way it fits. How would you have liked it, for instance, if I'd had the same instincts for self-preservation that you have? Because if I did, I'll tell you what would have happened: I never would have married you. I would have said 'to hell with Bill's life; my own interests are more important.' And I wouldn't have bothered to marry you, and come next August 11th, you'd be dead." She sat back and folded her arms, glaring at him.

He frowned. "That's different –"

"No, it's not," she interrupted him. "Because last September, when you and I met to talk about getting married, it was just about the most horrible fate I could think of. I could easily have let the both of you die so I wouldn't have to go through with it."

"You wouldn't have done that."

"No, because I love my brother. But let me tell you something: if it had been a complete stranger whose life had been on the line, I would have made the same decision. You don't just let people die so you don't have to face something that's unpleasant."

"It _is_ different," he insisted. "I won't just have to 'face something that's unpleasant.' I _will die_ if I try to walk away from Dark of the Moon. I've seen it happen to other people who've tried it. You betray them, and they get rid of you –" he snapped his fingers. "– just like that."

She scoffed at this idea. "You're a wizard, Draco. There are such things as Secret Keepers; there's a Wizard Protection Program."

He shook his head. "You have no idea what you're talking about."

"I think I do. I think you could walk away if you really wanted to, but you're too afraid to do it."

Draco did not say another word. With frightening calm and control, he simply set his whiskey glass on the mantle and stalked past her, out of the room, his back stiff and angry.

Ginny was past caring. She knew it was true, what she had said to him. How unthinkable to let other people die just to keep yourself safe. Draco believed it too: she had seen it in his eyes – just a glimmer of guilt – when she had spoken about it. She had to tell him, because no one else was going to. And he might hate her from now on, but the most important thing was that he had heard the truth from her. And maybe someday he would change because of it.

They didn't speak about it again, and for an entire week they reverted to treating each other with icy restraint. And then one Saturday afternoon, when sleet was rattling the windows, Ginny found herself in the kitchen baking gingersnaps. He came in, midway through, and announced that he was there to help her. He was, in so many ways, such an overgrown spoilt child, but she was touched that he wanted to be with her. So she showed him what to do, and he made a complete disaster of the kitchen, but in the end the coldness between them had vanished. He was what he was, Ginny decided, and it was not up to her to change him. She would be out of the relationship soon enough. Meanwhile, she was just glad to be on good terms with him again.

Gradually, the snow on the mountainsides shrank until there were only little pockets and runnels of it left on the shaded slopes, and the icicles on the eves thawed and dripped away to nothing. The days grew longer, and one evening toward the end of April, Ginny was walking to the broom shed behind the house when a splash of colour near the chimney caught her eye. Her daffodils had bloomed. For some reason, it made her cry.

Sarah's wedding, slated for the first weekend in May, was fast approaching. Ginny was fitted for her dress, and the last-minute details were sorted out, and before she knew it, the rehearsal was over with and the wedding was to be the next day. That night, she returned to Four Winds late, after a long party with the other bridesmaids, feeling bereft and melancholy.

Draco was still awake, reading in the library. Ginny went in and flopped into her chair.

"How was the rehearsal?" he asked.

Ginny shrugged. "Full of mistakes, but they say that makes for good luck at the wedding." She gazed pensively into the fire. After awhile, she said, "I'm so happy for Sarah, and at the same time I don't want her to get married. I want to move back into our old flat together, next fall, and to have things stay the same for us. I'll miss her dreadfully."

Draco did not reply to this, and Ginny was grateful to him for not throwing meaningless platitudes at her. At last, she roused herself and stood up. "Do you want to come to the wedding with me tomorrow? I can bring an escort."

"No, I don't think so. I'll just wait here, and you can tell me all about it when you get back."

"I thought you'd say that. Good night then."

"Good night."

She was up and out of the house early the next morning, before Draco was awake. She had promised to do Sarah's hair for her, and there was still the church to decorate.

The day flew by. Sarah, all in white, was lovely, and when Ginny had lowered her friend's veil for the last time, handed her the bouquet, and stepped into her own place in the procession, she could not stop the tears from flowing down her face at the knowledge that a chapter in her own life had ended, and things would never be the same again.

It was nine o'clock, earlier than he had expected, when Draco heard Ginny in the Apparition port. He felt something inside himself relax, and realized then that he had been on edge all day, waiting for her to come home. She appeared in the doorway of the library, dressed in something green and filmy, her hair, normally straight, a mass of curls tumbled around her shoulders. In one hand, she held a bottle, and she waved it at him.

"Hello."

"Hello yourself. What are you doing back so early?"

She shrugged. "I wasn't having a very good time. I waited a decent interval then told Sarah I had a headache, and she sent me home."

"Do you really have a headache?"

She shook her head, and collapsed onto the leather sofa, looking quite disconsolate. "No, but I'm really tired, and… well, I suppose I'm sad because my best friend just got married. In any case, I couldn't bring myself to stay any longer." She looked at the bottle in her hand. "Oh yes, they made me take home a bottle of Moet. Do you want some?"

"If you'll share it with me."

He was rewarded with a smile that warmed something deep inside him. "All right," she said, "that would be lovely."

He found champagne flutes, and pulled the cork on the bottle.

"How do you do that?" Ginny asked. "Whenever _I_ open a bottle of champagne, the cork goes flying across the room and nearly puts someone's eye out."

He handed her a flute, and settled himself back into his chair. "Tell me about the wedding."

Ginny lay back on the sofa and propped her feet onto a loose cushion. "Sarah was the most stunning bride," she said. "But then, I never met a bride who wasn't lovely, have you?"

He smiled tolerantly.

"But the rest of it was just like any wedding, I suppose. Everyone made speeches, and there was dancing and lobster for dinner. I'm afraid I cried through most of it. And oh, look." She reached for her handbag, and rummaged around in it. "Someone got a photo of Sarah and me together." She handed it to him.

From the photo, a smiling Ginny and a dark-haired bride waved, smirking and giggling at him. He watched, as Ginny blew a kiss. She had a spray of lilies-of-the-valley in her hair, he noticed, but it must have got loose at some point, because she wasn't wearing it now. He handed the picture back, and Ginny regarded it fondly.

"I'm going to frame it," she said. "One last thing to remember my best friend by."

"Rubbish," he told her briskly. "She's still your best friend. She's only married, not dead."

Ginny smiled sleepily at him from the sofa. "You're right of course, and I'm only feeling gloomy because I've had too much champagne. Things will look better in the morning." She gave an enormous yawn, and set her champagne glass carefully on the table at the end of the sofa. "I think I'll just close my eyes for a few minutes."

Draco watched as her eyes closed, and her breathing gradually evened out, and deepened. She had come to mean the world to him. She would be gone in four months, and he felt slightly desperate at the thought. Not for the first time, he thought about what it might take to keep her here with him. And much later, he retrieved a blanket from a chest in the corner, and settled it over Ginny's green gown, tucking it in well at the edges. Then he kissed her softly on the mouth, and went up to bed.

Ginny woke the next morning with a horrible, sticky taste inside her mouth. Bright sunlight was streaming in through the windows, and she groaned. She was stiff from having been on the sofa all night, and her face felt unpleasantly caked with all the makeup she had slept in. She closed her eyes again, but at last, roused herself to go up to her room and take a shower. But first, she folded the blanket that had been over her. Draco must have put it there; that had been kind of him, she thought.

It wasn't until later that day that she missed the photograph of herself and Sarah. She searched her handbag, and the sofa cushions, and looked underneath the corner of the rug. It was nowhere to be found. Lolly denied having seen it, and so did Draco. It annoyed her, because she had been planning on framing it, and keeping it on her bureau, but in the end she shrugged it off. It had to be somewhere in the library. It would turn up sooner or later.

A week later, Lolly's old mother in Peru died, and she went off to spend three days at the funeral. Ginny assured Draco she could manage the household just fine in Lolly's absence, and that there was no need to go scaring up a spare house-elf for just a few, short days.

The last afternoon of Lolly's absence, Ginny spent doing the laundry. She hated washing, and she had left it for last, but she didn't want the old, grieving house-elf to come home to a huge pile of it, so the day she was due back home, Ginny rolled up her sleeves and gamely plunged into the chore. It wasn't as bad as she had feared, once she got the hang of pressing the fiddly pleats in Draco's robes, and at last it was finished.

She picked up the last armful of robes and started up the stairs. She was to meet Betsy and Fiona for tea at Heart's Content later this afternoon, and she was looking forward to it. Draco had been away for two days, and she was tired of sitting around the house feeling that she was just _waiting_ for him to come home. Because of course, she wasn't.

Fiona had insisted she bring her guitar along with her today. She really should replace the G-string first, though, Ginny thought, and tune it before she got there. She would do that just as soon as she finished putting away the clean clothes for Lolly.

Preoccupied with her thoughts, Ginny pushed open the door to Draco's room, and stopped in her tracks. He stood there, in the middle of the room, just out of the shower, apparently. His hair hung in damp strands around his shoulders, where little droplets of water lay like diamonds against his pale skin. A towel was draped low around his hips. But it was not this that arrested her attention.

On the right side of his chest was a tattoo. Ginny stared at it in frozen fascination. Mercury's wings. The robes she was carrying slipped from her arms and fell soundlessly to the floor. She felt her vision begin to tunnel, and the room began to shift oddly around her. Mercury's wings.

She stepped towards him. Draco stood unmoving, his face stony and impassive. She took another step, and then another, until she was so close she felt the heat emanating from him, caught the scent of the soap he used. Still, he did not move.

"It's you," she whispered. _How was it possible that Draco Malfoy was Quicksilver?_

Dreamlike, she reached out, and with her fingers, began to trace the shape of the wings tattooed there like a badge.

He shuddered then, his muscles rippling under his skin. Wrenching himself away, he turned his back on her. He was still close, and she saw that gooseflesh had risen up all over him, and he was breathing heavily. When he spoke, his voice was low and harsh.

"If you say a word about this to anyone, I'll _Obliviate_ you into next week."

_Tell_ anyone? Who did he think she was? "Draco, I –"

"Get out."

_"Draco –"_

"I said get out."

She stared at his back. It was unyielding. Silently, she went out and pulled the door shut behind her.

Out in the corridor, Ginny leaned against the wall and closed her eyes against the hot tears that welled up and threatened to spill over. He had known all along what he was; knew that on some level, at least, they were allies.

And it changed nothing.

He still did not want her, could not stand for her to touch him. Angrily, she swiped at her tears. She was stupid to let herself hope, even for a moment, that it might be any different.

In his room, Draco leaned heavily against the wall and stared numbly at the carpet. She knew.

Oh Morgana, it changed everything.

He had not expected her to come in: had not taken the time to do his usual Concealing Charm on the mark. She had seen it, and if she ever told anyone, his life was as good as over. He tried to make himself feel that this was the most important thing, but his body refused to obey his mind. Instead, he remembered, with another little shudder of longing, how her fingertips had felt against him, how it had felt when she swayed a little, and her hair brushed his skin.

Would she tell anyone? And more importantly, would she ever, _ever_ touch him like that again?


	16. Chapter 16

_**A/N:** A bazillion thanks to **Gabriele**, champion formatting monkey, and encourager extraordinaire!_

**Chapter 16**

Ginny pushed herself away from the wall, and wiped her eyes on the hem of her blouse. Her thoughts came in disjointed fragments: _Quicksilver; Dark of the Moon; tattoo; hired killer…_ Blindly, she crossed to her room. In the bathroom, she blew her nose, and wiped the tearstains from her cheeks. She regarded herself in the mirror. She was a mess, her eyes and nose red, her skin pale and blotchy. She rested her hands on the sink, and stared at her reflection. Draco had been right after all: she had weighed him in the balance, boxed him up neatly, labelled him 'unacceptable,' and filed him away. Now it seemed that all her preconceived ideas about him weren't worth a brass Knut.

She heard a muffled sound from Draco's room across the corridor, as though something had been dropped, or thrown. All at once she was afraid he would leave again. She could not let him go: she had questions, and she wanted answers _now_.

She crossed to his room again, and rapped resolutely on the door. When he did not answer, she pushed the door open, and walked in.

He was wearing trousers this time, and a shirt, and was standing by the bed, towelling his hair dry.

Ginny didn't give herself time to lose her nerve. "You're Quicksilver," she said.

Draco winced. "No."

"No? Then how do you explain _that?_" Ginny stepped close to him, and jabbed at his chest with her finger.

Draco pulled away from her. "Stop."

She _wasn't_ going to stop. "Draco, why do you have a tattoo of Mercury's wings on your chest?"

He didn't answer.

"Are you Quicksilver?"

"No." He tossed the towel onto the bed. "That is… it's not _only_ me."

"What do you mean, not _only_ you?"

He sighed, and turned away from her, facing the mirror and pushing his fingers through his wet hair, arranging it into a semblance of order before he turned to face her again. "If you say a word about this to anyone, I'm dead."

She looked at him, bewildered. "Why?"

He slumped into one of the chairs before the empty fireplace, and buried his head in his hands. After a long moment, he looked up at her. "What I'm saying to you is never to leave this room: I'm not being dramatic when I tell you this information could cost me my life."

"All – all right."

He looked away from her. "You're right: I am part of Quicksilver. And Quicksilver runs counter to everything the Dark of the Moon Society stands for. Sometimes we even rescue the same Muggles Dark of the Moon is trying to kill."

_"We…?"_

"Right: _we_. Quicksilver's not a man, Ginny; it's a team: there are four of us."

She felt her mouth fall open.

Draco gave a cynical little laugh. "The papers are always saying that Quicksilver does things no ordinary man could do alone. Did you think they were just making that up?"

Ginny sank into the chair opposite Draco's. "No, but…" It was all so unexpected, and there were so many questions buzzing round her brain that she didn't know where to begin.

"But you, like everyone else," he finished for her, "preferred to think in terms of a super-human hero, going about saving the world single-handedly."

Ginny opened her mouth to protest, and then closed it again. He was right: there was something appealing about the idea of a super hero. She – they _all_ – had wanted to believe it.

"All right then," she said, "tell me about it."

He rested his elbows on his knees and looked pensively into the cold grate. "I killed a boy once," he said, and the tone of his voice was casual, almost conversational. "He was a Muggle: just a young boy. I _Crucioed_ him to death."

For just a moment, Ginny thought she must have misunderstood him. Because surely what she'd _thought_ he said could not be true. "No," she said.

"Yes. I did. I was being initiated into the Death Eaters, and one of my Initiation Rites was to torture a Muggle to death."

Ginny felt her skin crawl.

Draco went on, his tone detached. "I killed this young boy, and I did it in front of his father, while the other Death Eaters looked on: watched me become one of them. I was seventeen years old.

"But then the Aurors showed up…" Here, Draco glanced quickly at her, and she knew the revulsion she felt was written clearly on her face; she couldn't help it.

"They seemed to appear out of nowhere, and there was all this light and smoke, and I was hit in the head with some sort of spell… And the end result was that I woke up two weeks later, in the care of the Muggle man whose son I'd killed." He looked at her, as if to say, 'And that explains it all.'

She stared at him, horrified. It explained nothing.

After a moment, he looked back at his hands, which were clasped between his knees, and went on. "The Muggle man saved my life, you see. The Aurors would have killed me – or at the very least, locked me away in Azkaban – but in all the scuffle of arresting the Death Eaters, they missed me somehow. I was left behind.

"The Muggle man, who ought to have killed me himself – should have, at the very least, hated me and made me suffer for what I'd done – just… took _care_ of me. He saved my life."

He looked up at her again, and his eyes seemed to be burning, haunted by that long-ago memory. "He bought my soul," Draco said. "He bought it, and in return I have to keep on saving Muggles now. I don't have any choice: my life isn't my own."

Ginny realised that he did not sound at all bitter about it: merely thoughtful. She ventured a question. "What do you mean, he _bought_ your soul? Is it some sort of magical contract?"

Draco shook his head. "No, not a contract: at least, not a written one. It's something more… I don't know, more spiritual maybe. But just as binding, all the same."

"It was binding?"

"To me, it was."

Ginny sat back in her chair, and considered him. Here was a facet to Draco Malfoy's personality that she never would have dreamt existed. Bound to something so completely contrary to his nature, by a mere… 'spiritual' bond? It did not seem possible.

After a moment, she recollected herself to more practical matters. "You said there's more than one of you."

"Right."

"Who else?"

She sensed his reluctance. He looked her over carefully, and she felt that he was taking her measure, deciding whether he could trust her or not.

"David Gordon," he said at last, "And Lowen Kincaid."

She was shocked. "Do Fiona and Betsy know?"

"Yes, of course they do."

It occurred to Ginny to feel miffed that the other wives had known, and she alone had been left out. She pushed this aside, however. "Who's the fourth?"

He looked at her steadily. "The fourth one is our leader. He's your father."

Ginny laughed out loud. "Oh, come on Draco! You're not serious!"

"I am."

At the expression on his face, she stopped laughing. "But… you… my father…"

He smiled dryly. " 'Never the twain shall meet,' eh?"

"Never."

"Well, I assure you, it's true. I happen to have a great deal of respect for your father."

"_My_ father? Poor, shabby, Muggle-loving Arthur Weasley? No." She shook her head decisively. It was too much: it was not believable.

"Yes, as a matter of fact."

"But… why? How…?"

"Do you remember that Underground fire – oh, it must have been ten years ago, now?"

She frowned, trying to remember. She'd been home from Hogwarts on summer holidays then, and in those days, hadn't been particularly concerned about anything that happened in the Muggle news. Gradually, however, the details of it filtered back through her memory. "The one on the blue line, where so many people were trampled to death…?"

"That's the one: there were three hundred and sixty-one Muggles killed in that fire. Your father was appalled by the death toll. He kept thinking of all the lives that might have been saved if there had only been some magical intervention. So he came up with this idea: wizards speeding to the rescue, like the messenger of the gods. Mercury. Quicksilver."

He looked at her to be sure she was following him. She nodded, and he went on.

"The rescues had to be conducted with complete anonymity, of course: it all ran counter to the Statute of Secrecy, and about a dozen other wizarding laws. But your father was determined: he really does have the most unfathomable love for Muggles.

"Anyhow, he knew Lowen Kincaid through the Ministry: Kincaid used to work for the Department of Magical Games and Sports. They got talking one night, over drinks in the pub, and… before you knew it they'd collaborated on their first rescue.

"After that, Kincaid's cousin joined them: David Gordon. Did you know Lowen and David were cousins?"

"No," said Ginny faintly, "I didn't know." It seemed there were quite a lot of things she hadn't known, and she was tempted, rather resentfully, to point this out to him. With an effort, she bit her tongue and let him continue.

"Well, they are. And it wasn't long after that when the thing with the Muggle boy happened, and there I was, looking for some way in which to work out my debt to the Muggle man who'd saved my life.

"Somehow, your father got hold of the story. He interviewed my father in Azkaban before his trial, and I suppose that's how he found out. He contacted me one night, by Floo, and asked if I was willing to join them."

"I can't believe you were," said Ginny. "You've always hated anything to do with the Weasley family."

"Don't think it wasn't difficult for me," Draco replied, with a tactlessness that irritated her. "But I saw it for what it was: a means of working out my debt to the Muggle man. As well," he added, "You could say that what I'd done to the Muggle boy left a… a bad taste in my mouth."

Ginny caught a glimpse of something in Draco's eyes, and suspected that this was a gross understatement. She reached out and touched him lightly on the wrist. He turned his hand over and twined his fingers around hers, holding them tightly.

After a moment, he continued. "So I jumped on board, and the four of us have been a team for nearly ten years now. It's only in the past couple of years that we started leaving the sign of Mercury's wings at the rescue sites. That was my idea, actually," he added, with a trace of his old smugness.

Ginny's head was spinning with questions. "But… I don't understand…"

"What don't you understand?"

She fell silent. Really, he had explained it all. About Quicksilver, at least. After a moment, she asked, "What about Dark of the Moon?"

He shrugged. "What about it?"

"I… I suppose I was hoping you would tell me it's not true after all."

"Oh, it's true," he said grimly.

"You're playing both sides."

He looked at her quickly. "Yes, and that's why you can't tell anyone – _anyone_ – what I've just told you."

"What would the Baron do if he knew you were part of Quicksilver?"

"He'd kill me without a second thought." Draco's voice was flat.

"You can't keep something like this a secret forever. Sooner or later, you're going to have to choose between the two."

"Not if you keep your mouth shut, I'm not."

She pulled her hand away. "Don't be stupid, Draco! You can't play both sides. There…" she gestured futilely, "…there are _principles_ involved: there's right and there's wrong." She folded her arms and looked at him, her eyes pleading. "I _know_ you're a good man: you wouldn't be a part of Quicksilver if you weren't. Doesn't it bother you to be a part of something as evil as Dark of the Moon?"

Draco stood up and walked to one of the tall windows, looking down into the garden with his back to her. "Don't go trying to change me, Ginny. I am what I am; you don't have to like it. And I never claimed to be a good man."

She went to him, and put her hands on his shoulders. She felt him grow very still, as though he was holding his breath. "Draco," she said.

He turned to face her, and she saw that there was real anguish in his eyes. "Right and wrong is so simple for someone like you." His voice had a harsh edge. "You've been on the right side all your life; you've never had to change. It doesn't _cost_ you anything to live the way you live."

Ginny frowned. She started to say something, to argue back, and then stopped herself. There was nothing she _could_ say. Because he was right: there was a huge cost to the decision she was trying to convince him to make. Perhaps it was not right for her to insist on something that, in the end, Draco alone would have to bear the consequences of.

She touched him on his shirt, over the place where the Mercury's wings were tattooed, and lightly traced the shape of the wings that were there, just under the expensive fabric. "I'm proud of you," she said. "But I'm worried about you too."

His expression softened marginally. "I'm not asking you to worry. Just… don't try to change me."

"I can't promise that: I _want_ you to change."

His jaw tightened.

"But I'll try not to nag you about it," she said hastily. "Is that good enough?"

Her hand was still resting on his shirt, and he reached up and caught her wrist. "Go flying with me," he said in a husky voice.

Ginny recognized an olive branch when she saw one. "All right: just give me in a minute to plait my hair." She started for the door, but Draco held onto her wrist.

"No, leave it down."

"What, my hair?"

"Yes. Leave it down," he repeated.

"I can't leave it down while I fly," Ginny said, confused. "It'll be so tangled that I'll never get a brush through it again."

"I'll brush it out for you, then." He did not loosen his grip on her wrist, but looked at her with a peculiar, glittering intensity that made any further words dry up in her mouth. Suddenly, it seemed hard to breathe properly. She managed a faint nod, and followed him down the staircase, and out of the house.

In silence, they went to the broom shed, and collected their brooms. They kicked off, and together they soared up over the stand of Scotch pine that bordered the lawn, and then they were out over the open moor. It stretched away in three directions, raw and sweeping, and savage, draped in the muted intensity of early summer colours. The wind whipped Ginny's hair around her face, assaulting her with the scents of pine and early heather, and from some unseen, low-lying bog, a hint of peat.

They flew for miles, not speaking to each other. From time to time, they dropped down to investigate a burn that threaded, thin and silvery, through the bracken, or a trestle bridge spanning a deep gorge, or an eagle's eyrie built into the side of a craggy cliff. By the time Draco motioned to her, and turned for home, the sun was beginning to dip below the rim of the far mountains, and the shadows lay long on the ground below them.

In the foyer of Four Winds, they kicked off their shoes and hung up their cloaks.

"Wait for me in the library," he told her. "I'll be there in minute."

While she waited, Ginny poured them each a drink, and wondered what he was doing. Her question was answered a moment later, when Draco came in, carrying her hairbrush. She felt her stomach do an odd flip. She hadn't thought he'd actually _meant_ it when he said he would brush her hair for her. No one had ever brushed her hair, besides herself and her mother, and sometimes girlfriends at school, when they'd been experimenting with new hairstyles. There was an intimacy to the act, and the idea of Draco doing it for her made her face grow unexpectedly warm, and her skin tingle with anticipation.

Draco motioned for her to sit on the hearthrug, and settled himself on the chair behind her. The light had faded from the library windows, and an edge of chill was creeping into the room. Draco pulled his wand and pointed it at the fireplace. _"Incendio."_ The flames burst into life, and crackled merrily.

He looked down at her, sitting on the floor at his feet, and thought that this was a kind of magic he had never learned about in school. He hadn't wanted Ginny in his life to begin with, but she had come in anyway, with her brilliant hair, and her tight jeans, and her white ring and her soft touches… and he knew that he was different because of her. He _felt_ things now: things he hadn't known a person could feel. How amazing that such a thing was possible.

He set his glass down on the table beside him, and picked up the hairbrush. "Ouch," she said, almost as soon as he had begun, and he stopped. He didn't want to hurt her. "Start at the bottom," she said, "and work up. It's easier that way."

He separated off a small section of hair, draping the rest of the tangled mess over her shoulder, out of the way. He began at the bottom, as she had said, working carefully through each snarl and knot, until the strands slipped straight and shining and free through his fingers.

Love: it was by now such a familiar feeling, and yet so strange; he could hardly comprehend it. He leaned forward and rested his lips on the top of her head, closing his eyes, breathing in the simple scent of her hair, and he felt her go still under him. But she did not pull away. Instead, she gave a little sigh, and leaned back against his knees.

After that, the air in the room seemed thicker, somehow. Electrified. He did not hurry, but took his time over each section of hair, marvelling at its colours, careful not to hurt her. Trying to give her something; to communicate, through the simple act of brushing her hair, what he felt for her. When he had finished, he laid down the hairbrush, and lifted the thick, glossy mass in both hands, watching it flow back through his fingers like liquid fire. And he wondered at himself.

He, Draco Malfoy, had had scores of women more beautiful than Ginny Weasley: women who were more experienced, more obedient, more eager to please. But never had he done anything with any of them that had affected him as deeply as the experience of brushing out his wife's hair had done. He leaned forward and kissed her head again.

Ginny pulled away from him, and came up on her knees, facing him. "Thanks," she said, and when he looked at her, she dropped her eyes, tracing an uncertain pattern on the hearthrug with her fingertips.

He said nothing, but let the silence hang between them, heavy and charged with possibilities.

At last, she said awkwardly, "Well, I think I'll go to bed."

He leaned forward and cupped her face in his hand. "I'll go with you," he said.

She froze, and time froze with her, suspended in a breathless state in which everything seemed to hang by a fragile thread. He watched her, half-afraid of what she would say. But she did not say anything. Instead, she reached up and took his hand in hers. She stood up, tugging him to his feet.

"Yes," she said, "come with me."

He led her up the staircase, their footsteps noiseless on the carpeted treads. Outside his bedroom door, he stopped and turned to look at her. "Are you sure?"

She smiled at him. In the dimly-lit corridor, her eyes were luminous and there was something in them that made him flush with heat. "I'm sure," she said.

He pushed open the door to his bedroom, and followed her in, closing it behind them. With his wand, he lit a single lamp and then, before he did anything else, he went to the fireplace and firmly closed the draft. "No Floo calls this time," he told her.

He went to her, and put his arms around her, tipping up her chin, and studying her face minutely: the brown eyes fringed in copper-coloured lashes; the freckles smattered across her pink cheeks. Gently, he kissed one eyelid closed, then the other. He kissed the tip of her nose, and finally, her mouth. Ginny kissed him back, her lips soft and hesitant. He knew this part was nothing new to her, but he let her go slowly, taking her time, getting used to the idea of where it was leading. She was the one who pulled him closer and deepened the kiss. He felt a surge of heady power: she wanted him.

He felt her fingertips stroking his face, and something inside him crumbled under the light touch. He heard himself make a noise deep in his chest, and pulled her hard against the whole length of his body. She didn't protest, only moved a little against his hips. He didn't know whether she'd done it on purpose or not, but it was provocative, and he felt his pulse skyrocket. He had to have more of her. He slipped his hand under her blouse, her skin hot against his. Impatiently, he pulled at the thin fabric. "This is in the way."

She raised her arms and let him pull it over her head and drop it to the floor. She reached for the fasteners on his robe, fumbling with them a little, but getting them free at last. Uncertainly, she slipped her hand inside the robes, and then undid the buttons on his shirt. At last, she found his skin, and her fingers skimmed over his chest, and down his belly. He closed his eyes briefly, while the room reeled around him. It was torture; sheer, perfect torture. He groped for the clasp on her bra, awkwardly, one-handed. "Designed to keep men out," he muttered, and she giggled. The bra landed on the floor, on top of her blouse.

Ginny pushed the robe off his shoulders, and Draco lifted her up into his arms, depositing her onto the high bed. He stepped back, looking at her while he shed the rest of his clothes. He thought she would be shy, but to his surprise, Ginny lay back and let herself be looked at. She was… perfectly imperfect: incandescently beautiful. He came to her and lowered himself over her, and then for a long time there was only their breathing, harsh and hot in the darkened room, and their incredible first discovery of each other.

Once, he paused, lifting himself up on his arms, and looking into her flushed face. "You know I have to hurt you."

She bit her lip, and nodded. "It's all right."

"I'll try…"

"Just _do_ it."

And he did. She gripped his arms and cried out in pain, and he stopped at once. But after a moment, he felt her relax a little underneath him, and he began to move again. And then he heard himself gasp her name out loud, and he was flying.

Afterward, he slumped onto her, and they lay there, wrapped around each other, both breathing hard, and a little sweaty. When his heart rate had returned to normal, and he trusted himself to speak again, he put out a finger and ran it over her collarbone.

"All right?"

"Never better."

He looked at her face then, and saw that she was telling the truth. He kissed her. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"For letting me be the first."

"Oh…" In the dimness, he could tell that she was blushing. He rolled onto his back, pulling her over against his side. She curled up, fitting herself into his shape. He was beginning to feel pleasantly drowsy, surrounded by the heat of Ginny, and the secure feeling of knowing she was there.

"Draco," he felt her breath as she said the words against his shoulder, "I love you."

His heart missed a beat, and he could not breathe. He was stunned. She _loved_ him? He opened his mouth, but was struck by a sudden, icy wave of fear. He wanted to say it back to her. Because it was true: it was _so_ true. But somehow, he could not make the words come out of his mouth.

After a moment, he felt Ginny raise her head in the darkness, and knew she was looking at him. "Haven't you ever said that to anyone before?" she said quietly.

That was the trouble; he had said it scores of times before, to women who expected you to say that kind of thing, whether you meant it or not. Sure, he had said it: he had just never _meant_ it before. Saying it had never exposed him to someone like it would if he said it to her. And so now, when he finally meant it, he could not make his mouth form the words. Instead, he pulled her closer against him, and turned his face into her hair. And after a moment, she settled into him again, and gradually he drifted off to sleep.

He awoke twice more that night, and Ginny was there, ready for him. And once, she woke him up herself. When he woke for the last time, it was to see morning sunlight streaming through the cracks in the long, velvet draperies. Beside him, Ginny was still asleep, her back to him. He watched her freckled shoulders move up and down with her breathing, and thought about what had happened.

She loved him. The thought of it filled him with wonder. Other than his mother, Draco couldn't think of a single other person who had ever loved him. Others had indulged him, or admired him; used him, or feared him: none of that was the same. Ginny _loved_ him. It meant she would stay, of course. It meant he no longer had to dread September, and her leaving.

And somewhere, between now and then, he would find the courage to say the words back to her.

She woke up then, and rolled over, looking up at him with sleep-heavy eyes. He leaned over and tried to kiss her, but she turned her head away. "I have to brush my teeth," she mumbled, behind her hand. Her eyes were smiling at him. He felt a rush of relief: he had wondered if, in the cold, hard light of day, she would regret last night. Apparently, that worry was groundless. She sat up and pulled on the sheet, tugging it off the bed and wrapping it around herself before heading for the bathroom.

"Leave the sheet here!" he protested, but she ignored this, throwing him a haughty look as she glided off in the direction of the shower, trailing her makeshift robe behind her. "You weren't so bloody concerned about your modesty last night," he called after her. In answer, his shaving brush came flying through the bathroom door, and bounced on the pillow by his head. Draco lay back and laughed.

It was the beginning of a perfect summer. Most days they were apart, while Ginny went to her job at the Ministry in London, and Draco tended to the vineyards in Greece and Australia. In the evenings, they flew together, or visited friends, or just lay on a blanket under the stars, and talked into the small hours of the morning. The nights were long, and filled with each other. Ginny, with her sweet inexperience, was teaching him things he'd never known about sex before: that it could be filled with laughter. That it was not about taking at all, but about giving. That it really _was_ different with someone you loved.

One night, a week into August, Ginny reminded him that her twenty-fifth birthday was coming up. It was raining outside, a steady, soaking drizzle that had trapped them inside, and given them a good excuse to build a fire. They were playing Dragons and Dwarves in the library, and as usual, she was losing spectacularly.

"I want you to do me a favour," she said.

"I'm not giving you back those points you just lost, if that's what you mean," he answered, and trumped the card she had just played.

"No, that's not what I want."

Something in her tone of voice made him look up. "What, then?"

"I want you to come to the Burrow with me, for my birthday."

He snorted. "Your family wouldn't want me there, and I wouldn't want to be there, so it wouldn't be much of a birthday for you."

She lay her cards facedown in front of her, and leaned forward, taking his hand. "_I'd_ want you there. And besides, you're already on good terms with my father, and that has you automatically on good terms with my mother…"

"Your brothers are the ones I was thinking of," he observed dryly.

"Oh, my brothers can go stuff themselves," Ginny said impatiently. "I want to tell them about us."

He looked closely at her. Did this mean what he thought it meant? He had never quite got up the courage to ask her if she was going to stay after September, preferring to believe she would tell him when the time was right. Now, he considered her request. Could he suffer through an evening of Weasley idiocy for the sake of making Ginny happy? After all, it wasn't like her brothers were going to attack him in front of their father, or anything. He sighed.

"You wouldn't leave me alone with them, and expect me to go off and do 'man things' while you and your mother drank tea in the kitchen?"

"No, of course not! I'd stay right by your side every minute."

"And we wouldn't have to stay long?"

"For supper and cake. I'll tell my mother we only have an hour and a half."

An hour and a half with Ginny's brothers. It was a gruesome thought. He sneaked a look at her: hope and expectation were shining there, like a child at Christmas. Damn it.

"Oh, fine then," he muttered.

With a squeal, Ginny jumped up from her chair and in an instant had come around the table and sat in his lap, burying her head against his shoulder. He had a strong suspicion she was trying not to cry.

She lifted her head and looked at him. "Thank you, Draco. That's the best birthday gift I could have asked for." Generously, she added, "You don't even have to get me another present."

She smelled warm and indescribably _her_. Draco slipped his hand inside her shirt. "Hey, don't I get some kind of reward for being so noble?" he said. She looked at him in astonishment. He grinned lewdly at her, and moved his hand higher.

She smiled. "Mr Malfoy," she said, "if you're going to brave the Weasley family for my sake, you can name your reward."

"That's the ticket," he said, and kissed her deeply.

Later, they lay under a light blanket on the hearthrug, the coals of the fire casting them in orange and black shadows.

"That was quite a reward," he said to the ceiling.

"Mmm…" she answered sleepily. Then, a thought seemed to occur to her, and she sat up straight, looking down at him. "Draco," she said, "I think that for _giving_ you such a great reward, you should give _me_ something, in return." She paused for effect, and trailed her fingers up the inside of his thigh. "I think you should forgive me my Dragons and Dwarves debt."

He shuddered under her touch, but retained flawless control. "I don't know," he said doubtfully. "How much is it now?"

She bent close to him, and her breath was warm against his ear. "Two hundred eighty Galleons, nine Sickles, and two Knuts." She bit his earlobe gently.

Draco was suddenly breathless with the force of his love for her. She had brought so much joy into his life: warmth, and laughter, and companionship. He could not begin to remember what life had been like before her. He pulled her down onto his chest, and stroked her back.

"Two hundred eighty Galleons, nine Sickles, and two Knuts," she said, sounding a little breathless. "Come on; let's call it even."

Draco nuzzled her ear, and breathed in the scent that was entirely Ginny. Entirely his. "Never," he whispered. "Not a single Knut."

Ginny dissolved into peals of laughter, and beat her fists against his shoulder. "You're evil!"

"Yes, I know." And then he covered her mouth with his own, and neither one of them spoke again for a long time.

Monday morning, Ginny dropped in to see her father at his office. Arthur sat at a desk that was cluttered as much with photographs of his family as with parchment, quills and reference books. He didn't notice her at first, and she stood in the doorway, watching him, overwhelmed by a great swell of love and pride that rose up inside her, and brought tears to her eyes. Her father, who had risked his life for ten years to save the Muggles he so dearly loved, and had never taken a scrap of credit for it. She went to him and dropped a kiss on the top of his head, where his pink scalp was beginning to show through the thinning strands of pale hair.

He looked up, delighted. "Ginny! I thought I'd see you today. Malfoy flooed me last night and told me everything."

'Everything?' Ginny thought wryly. She certainly hoped Draco hadn't told her father _everything._

"Sit down, sit down," said Arthur, gesturing toward one of the chairs in front of his desk. "But close the door first. I expect you want to talk about… erm… _you know what._"

Ginny closed the door and sat down. "If you mean Quicksilver, yes. I do want to talk about it."

Arthur sighed, and looked at her with an expression that was half modesty, and half pride. "Draco said he told you most of it."

"He did."

"Then what did you want to say?"

Ginny thought about this for a moment. "Only that I'm proud of you, Dad." She watched her father flush, but knew that he was pleased. "Does Mum know?" she asked.

"Of course. I didn't go sneaking off like that very many times before she got suspicious: thought I was seeing another woman! And I've told her that you know too, now."

Ginny stayed a few minutes more, catching up on family news, and chatting about inconsequential things. At last she rose, and patted her father on the hand. "I need to get back to my office, Dad, or they're going to catch on and stop paying me." She leaned down for a kiss, and turned to go.

"Ginny…"

She turned back.

"How…" Arthur cleared his throat self-consciously. "How's it going between you and Malfoy?"

Ginny couldn't hold back the grin that broke out over her face. "It's going _wonderful_, Dad. Just great." And with a little wave, she was gone.

Arthur sat for a long time, toying with a Muggle calculator, which he had never yet learned how to use. Things were 'wonderful,' Ginny had said. It was good to see her looking so well, and so happy. He sighed, knowing that she and Malfoy had a fight ahead of them, when it came down to what Ginny's brothers would say about it all. But in the end, he smiled. Malfoy was a good man: he'd seen it firsthand for nearly ten years now. Arthur could entrust his only daughter to him.

That day, he ate lunch with his old friend Filius Flubberbuster. Filius was still Senior Secretary in the Department of Magical Curses and Contracts. In fact, it was he who had first brought Arthur the news, all those years ago, of The Curse of the Firstborn. The two men had been friends before that day however, and they had remained firm friends ever since. Over ploughman's lunch in their favourite pub, he told Flubberbuster about his visit with Ginny that morning, omitting, of course, any reference to Quicksilver.

He'd expected Filius to be pleased at the news that Ginny and Draco were getting on so well, but to his surprise, his friend frowned.

"What's the matter?" Arthur demanded. "It's great that they're making a go of it, isn't it?"

Filius chewed thoughtfully, and swallowed. "I've been doing this job for thirty-five years, Arthur. And I don't like to be a wet blanket, but I've got to tell you that these kinds of things don't often turn out well."

Arthur was astonished. "But it's already turned out well! Their year and a day is up next month, and they're going to stay together. I call that a success, don't you?"

Filius considered this. "There's a saying," he began, _"A curse is a curse, no matter how pretty the package."_ He shook his head. "They don't call them 'curses' for nothing, you know."

"Rubbish," said Arthur firmly. "Things will work out for them: I could see it in Ginny's face this morning."

Filius nodded, and wiped his mouth. "I'm sure you're right then, Arthur. I'm sure you're right." They both reached for the cheque at the same time, but Filius got to it first. "Here, let me get that today. After all, you're celebrating, eh? To a daughter married, and living happily ever after." He raised his glass and drained the remains of his pint.

Arthur followed suit, and pushed himself away from the table. "Thanks, Flubberbuster. Hate to eat and run, but I've got an appointment in five minutes." He picked up his hat, nodded at his friend, and made for the door.

Filius watched him go, and could not dispel a sense of foreboding that was so strong as to be nearly tangible. Arthur Weasley was a good chap: one of the best. He did not want to see him, or any of his family hurt. Still, he thought, as he picked up his own hat, and the cheque, and headed for the till, _'A curse is a curse, no matter how pretty the package.'_ He'd been doing this job for too long, and maybe he'd grown cynical. But he knew these things rarely turned out happily.

With a sigh, he clapped his hat onto his head, and went back to work.


	17. Chapter 17

_**A/N:** Sorry it's been so long since the last chapter; thanks to all of you who are still reading and reviewing. And thanks to **Gabriele**: if you're enjoying this story at all, it's because he takes the time to format and post each chapter for me._

**Chapter 17**

"No way. No. Bloody. Way." Ron stared at Ginny, his mouth agape. "You're not married to Draco Malfoy." He said this last part in a final sort of way, as though he were setting his sister straight on a piece of information she had somehow got wrong.

Ginny sat on the sofa between her parents and folded her arms, glaring across the room at him.

"Yes, Ron," Arthur said gently, "she _is_ married to…" But Ron was shaking his head before the words were completely out of his father's mouth.

It was a Tuesday, three days before Ginny's birthday. Almost as soon as she had convinced Draco to come to dinner with her family at The Burrow, she had begun to regret the idea. In truth, she realised it was probably a disaster waiting to happen. She had toyed with the notion of cancelling the whole thing, but always came round to the conclusion that that was the coward's way out. She loved Draco. If she was going to stay with him there was no way to hide it from her brothers forever: it was time to come out into the open. So Ginny had gathered about herself every shred of courage she possessed, and she had called a Weasley Family Meeting.

Weasley Family Meetings were not held often; they were reserved for the really _big_ things. There had been a meeting to discuss Percy, when he had made his break with the Order. Another when Bill and Fleur had announced their engagement. When Charlie died they had held one, not to make plans or discuss options, but simply to regroup as a family and to cling to one another. There had been many meetings over the years – although Ginny had never been present at one of them – to announce the advent of a new baby in the family. A Weasley Family Meeting was not an event any of them missed. Ever.

Now, twelve of them sat in the living room of The Burrow. Ginny was on the sofa, flanked by her parents, grateful for their solidarity. Ron, Hermione, Fred, Angelina, George, Bill, Fleur. Percy and Penny had sent their two boys out to the back orchard with a pair of small broomsticks, and were there as well. All of them wore varied expressions of shock, anger, outright disbelief, and in Bill's case, a sick sort of guilt.

Now, Hermione spoke up, obviously distressed. "Why didn't you ever tell me about this, at school? I might have been able to help! We could have found a counter curse… There must have been _some_ way of circumventing…"

"Yeah," said Fred, cracking his knuckles. "You should have told all of us. We would have taken care of the arsehole for good a long time ago, and you'd never –"

"You shut _up!_" Ginny jumped to her feet and took a threatening step toward Fred. "Just keep your stupid, fat mouth shut, Fred Weasley! You don't know anything about it." Her voice was rising, and she was gratified to see Fred shrink back a little.

_"And,"_ her mother added firmly, "there will be no nasty language like that from any of you. Draco is a member of the family now."

Ron and George snorted simultaneously, and George muttered something under his breath.

_"What?"_ Ginny cried, turning on him. "Sorry, George, I didn't quite _hear_ that."

George glared back at her, and spoke very loudly. "I said 'not a member of _my_ family, he's not'."

"Oh, so tell me, George, what should I have done then: refused to marry Draco, and just… let Bill die?"

"You could have looked a little harder for a way out of it." George's voice was sullen.

"It was a _blood curse!_" she shouted at him.

"You didn't have to go and fall in love with him!"

"I couldn't _help_ it!"

"You damn well should have _tried_ to help it. He's the _enemy!_"

"Yeah!" Ron added, "He _poisoned_ me once!"

"You go stuff yourself, Ron!" Ginny spat at him. "He wasn't trying to poison _you_, and you know it! That was a long time ago; _some_ people change, over time." She threw him a look of contempt. "And some people _never_ change."

Arthur cut in firmly. "Draco is _not_ the enemy, George: he's not his father. He does a lot of good in this world, whether the rest of you are aware of it or not. This marriage between Ginny and Malfoy was unavoidable. And you all," he added, looking sternly over his spectacles at all of them, "will do well to realise that what's done is done. Sit down, Ginny."

Ginny hesitated, then grudgingly sat down.

Her father went on. "Your mother and I have known about The Curse of the Firstborn since the day Ginny came into this world. Don't you think we tried everything we could to prevent Ginny having to marry Malfoy? _Not…_" he added, when Fred made a derisive noise, "because of who he is, but because we did not want your sister to have to marry _anyone_ against her will. We wouldn't have wanted that for any of you.

"Over the years, we've talked to every Curse Breaker in Britain, and some outside of it. We consulted with the Department of Magical Curses and Contracts; we tried _everything_. The end result was that there was simply no getting around it: it had to be done." Ron started to protest, but Arthur raised his hand for silence, and went on. "And if your sister has come to love the man she's married to, I expect you all to treat that with respect, and to make some sort of peace with it. I will not have this family torn apart over old feuds and prejudices, _especially_ unfounded ones."

There was a little silence after he finished, and then Bill cleared his throat. When he spoke, his voice was low and hoarse. "Thanks, Ginny. I had no idea."

Beside him, Fleur put her hand on his arm. "You 'ave saved 'is life," she pronounced firmly. "Beel is blessed to 'ave a leetle sister 'oo would do such a thing for 'im." She gave a toss of her long silvery hair and sat up straighter. "Your 'usband Draco weel always be welcome in our 'ome, Ginny."

"Yeah," Bill said with conviction. He looked around at his brothers' mutinous faces. "And the rest of you can just get off your high horses and say the same to her. She would have done this for any of you if she'd had to: think about that. If she'd married Malfoy to save any of _your_ lives you'd be singing a different tune right now." He turned back to his sister. "Ginny, I think you're the bravest and most unselfish person I've ever known." He glared round at his brothers again. "And you lot are some of the _most_ selfish I've ever known. I'm ashamed of you all."

In the ensuing silence, Ginny went to Bill, and kneeling on the floor, put her arms around him. He held her tightly, and she felt his shoulders begin to shake. When he let her go, she turned to Fleur. How ironic, she thought, that Fleur, for whom she had always cherished a bit of contempt, should be the first to be accepting of Draco. Mentally, she repented of every mean or catty thing she had ever thought about her sister-in-law. She kissed Fleur on the cheek and went to sit between her parents again. She was gratified to see that her brothers and their wives were all looking highly uncomfortable.

"Now then," said Arthur, in a no-nonsense voice, "Ginny's husband Draco will be joining us for dinner on Ginny's birthday. We will all welcome him as a one of the family and treat him with the same respect and courtesy we offer to Fleur, Penny, Angelina, and Hermione."

No one said anything.

"Percy?" prodded Arthur.

Percy cleared his throat and looked up at his father. "Yes, Dad."

"Don't say it to me; say it to your sister."

"All right, Ginny. I'll do my best." He had the grace to look abashed.

"Fred?"

"Don't have much of a choice, do I?" said Fred irritably.

Suddenly, Angelina turned on him. "Oh get over yourself!"

Fred looked startled.

"Ginny," Angelina continued, "you can be sure that Fred will be on his best behaviour towards Draco. _And…_" she narrowed her eyes at her husband, "you have my word of honour that there will be _no pranks_ played at your birthday dinner."

Fred opened his mouth to protest but apparently thought better of it and subsided into a sulky silence.

"Thank you, Angelina," Arthur murmured. He turned to George. "And you, George?"

George shrugged one shoulder and muttered, "Whatever."

"_Pardon_ me?" There was a note of iron in his father's voice that George did not miss.

He blew out a breath and nodded at Ginny. "OK then."

"And no pranks?" Arthur said.

"If you say so."

"I _do_ say so. That's settled, then. Ron?"

But Ron remained stubbornly silent, and even Hermione could not manage more than a feeble, half-apologetic nod at Ginny.

"Well, then," said Arthur, standing up. "We'll expect to see those of you who can agree to behave properly on Friday, for Ginny's birthday dinner. Those of you who can't agree might do better to stay home." He cast a significant look in Ron's direction, and picked up his hat. "I'll say good-bye, then. I have some work to catch up on at the office." And he headed towards the Floo in the kitchen.

On Friday night, Ginny stood on the library hearthrug, and gave Draco a quick kiss. "It's going to be all right," she told him, sounding more certain than she felt.

Draco only shrugged. He had been remote and silent all day long, and she knew he was dreading the evening ahead with every fibre of his being. She dreaded it too, but still believed there was little choice: It would have to be done, and they might as well do it sooner than later. It was her birthday: maybe for her sake everyone would be on their best behaviour.

He stood, as tense as one of her guitar strings, and faintly white about the lips, and gave her a little push towards the fireplace. "Well, let's get it bloody over with, then."

Ginny took a pinch of Floo powder, threw it into the flames, and stepped in. "The Burrow!" she cried, and for a fleeting second, thought to wonder whether Draco would actually have the courage to follow her or not.

He did. In moments, they were standing in her mother's cluttered kitchen, brushing ash from their hair and clothing. Ginny looked around in relief: they had come half an hour early so they would have the home turf advantage. None of her brothers had arrived yet.

At once, her father stepped forward and seized Draco by the hand. "Malfoy! Good to see you! You're looking well."

Draco relaxed perceptibly. "So are you, sir."

Molly hurried forward, brandishing a wooden spoon. "Draco dear, I never got a chance to thank you for saving Ginny's life in that terrible convenience shop episode."

"It wasn't only me…" Draco started to protest.

"Oh… well, come here, then, let me give you a hug." And she pulled him into a tight, bosomy embrace. Ginny nearly giggled at the shocked expression on Draco's face, but wisely restrained herself in time.

"Drink, Malfoy?" Arthur held up a bottle of Firewhisky.

"Thanks."

Ginny noticed that Draco drained his glass rather more quickly than usual, but supposed she couldn't blame him. How anyone could be expected to face an evening like the one ahead without chemical help was beyond her. Her father had just refilled his own glass, and Draco's, when the front door opened and Percy, Penny, their two sons Gil and Jem walked in. Almost on their heels came Fred, Angelina, and George.

At once, the atmosphere in the room changed, and beside her Ginny could sense Draco's tension like a palpable thing. For a moment the group hesitated, as one, in the kitchen doorway, and Ginny saw both Fred's and George's eyes narrow menacingly. Behind them, Percy nervously pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. Someone coughed. Then – she could have kissed her sister-in-law from gratitude – Angelina elbowed her way forward and marched up to Draco, her hand outstretched.

"Good to see you, Malfoy," she said evenly, and though her voice was not exactly warm there was something in it that promised Draco a fair chance. He recognised this, and shook her hand.

Percy and Penny followed, Percy shooting his twin brothers a defiant look before he too offered Draco his hand, muttering something that sounded like, "Malfoy."

Only Fred and George remained in the doorway, arms folded stubbornly across their chests. Fortunately, their rather pointed message to Draco was somewhat blunted by the arrival of Bill and Fleur just then.

As the others had done, they paused just for a moment in the doorway, and then Fleur rushed forward, grasping Draco by the arms, and rising up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek.

_"Mon cher!"_ she exclaimed. "'Ow can we evair express our gratitude for what you and Ginny 'ave done to save Beel's life?"

Draco turned faintly pink, and for the first time, his mouth quirked up in its characteristic half-smile. "Well, to be fair it saved my life too, you know."

Bill shook his hand enthusiastically. "So we have something in common, then." His enthusiasm, together with Fleur's, seemed to thaw something in the air, and suddenly things seemed to be almost normal. Angelina and Penelope began to chatter with one another, Jem and Gil turned and pounded up the stairs towards the toys in the attic, and Percy wished her a happy birthday. Beside her, Bill was still talking earnestly to Draco, and as the two of them moved away from her, to stand closer to the fire, Ginny was overwhelmed with love and gratitude for her favourite brother.

"And you," Fleur said, turning to her, "You must tell me 'ow you find married life to be. Eet ees the _best_ thing in zee 'ole world, ees eet not?" She linked her arm in Ginny's, and pulled her towards the table, where Penny and Angelina were still talking nineteen to the dozen.

Ginny blinked away tears of relief. "Thank you, Fleur," she managed.

Fleur winked at her. "We weel show them what ees what, eh? Some of your brothers are vairy stubborn, but we weel make thees night a success in spite of them."

Ron and Hermione did not show up for dinner. Ginny didn't know whether she was disappointed or relieved about this. It could only mean that they hadn't reconciled themselves to her situation. Draco, sitting beside her, ate very little, but she knew it was because he still was tense, and on his guard. Percy unbent a good deal towards him throughout the meal – and after all, Ginny reflected, he _should:_ he knew what it was to be a black sheep. Penny took her cue from her husband, and Angelina pointedly included Draco in the conversation once or twice, in spite of Fred's glowering silence. It was only Fred and George who steadfastly refused to look at him or talk to him, and indeed seemed to have very little to say at all.

Molly was slicing the cake, and Ginny was just beginning to sigh with relief because the evening was nearly over without mishap, when the flames in the fireplace flared suddenly green. Hermione stepped out into the kitchen, followed closely by Ron, who wore an expression of mutinous resentment on his face. Ginny felt her scalp tighten with a tingle of apprehension.

Hermione spoke into the silence that had fallen. "Hello, everyone." Ginny noticed that her voice was not quite steady. "Sorry we're late, Molly. Happy birthday, Ginny." Her eyes met Draco's. "Hello, Draco," she said quietly.

Draco nodded curtly at her.

There followed another silence, which quickly grew uncomfortable as Ron, expected to say _something_, patently refused to do so.

"Well," Molly said brightly, after a moment or two of this awkwardness, "better late than never. Budge up, you lot, and make room for Ron and Hermione at the table." It broke the tension, and to Ginny's relief, conversation resumed as it had been before.

Her mother handed round the cake, but although it was her favourite – chocolate marmalade – Ginny could not force down a bite of it. It was all too much; Ron was an insufferable prat, and the twins were being deliberately mean. It was her _birthday:_ why couldn't they at least _pretend_ to be nice to Draco, at least for one evening?

"Ginny's already opened the rest of her gifts, Hermione," Molly was saying. "Why don't you pass yours down, and she can open it now?"

Mechanically, Ginny took the heavy, beribboned box from Hermione, conscious all the while of Ron's and the twins' cold gazes on her husband. Because she felt it was expected of her, she shook the package and tried to sound like she cared when she asked, "What did you get me?"

"Well," Ron spoke up suddenly and loudly, "we wanted to get you a nice _divorce_, but it seems they don't gift wrap those."

A horrified silence fell over the table. Ginny stared at her brother in disbelief. Ron's face flushed a brilliant scarlet, and his mouth hung open a little, as if he himself could not believe what he had just said.

And suddenly, Fred and George both broke into loud peals of laughter.

A tidal wave of fury washed over Ginny, swamping her in rage such as she had never known before. She stood up, and with all her might hurled the gift at Ron's shocked face. It hit him squarely in the forehead with a satisfying _thunk_. The table erupted in gasps and little shrieks.

"That's enough! That's _enough!_" Molly shouted, and at the same time, Arthur stood up and pointed at the twins.

"You two: Out!"

The twins stopped laughing. "Dad…!"

"Now wait a minute…"

But Arthur was adamant. _"Now."_ Looking sulky, Fred and George pushed back from the table. Angelina looked as though she did not know what to do.

"Ron, Ginny…"

But Ginny had had enough. "No, don't bother," she said, and congratulated herself that her voice sounded calm and perfectly composed. "We were just leaving." She swept the group around the table with a withering look. "Those of you who found it in yourselves to be decent, thank you. Ron, George, Fred: I'm embarrassed to admit you're part of my family."

And somehow, they made it out the front door, and had walked very fast down the lane before her tears broke free. And then, all she could do was to cling to the front of Draco's robes and sob brokenly, while he rubbed her back and murmured pointless, comfortless things to her.

She had been mad to suppose this would ever work out. To think that Draco would ever be accepted by her family. It was the worst birthday she had ever had in her life.

Two days after Ginny's birthday dinner at The Burrow, a letter arrived for Draco. It was afternoon, and Ginny was at work. He was at home, poring over some account books, when he heard the familiar tapping on the library window. At once, he felt a prickle of dread; it had been a long time since he'd had a mid-afternoon letter. The morning post had come hours ago, and he had a good idea what this might be.

Sure enough, he went to the window to find The Baron's Eagle owl pecking imperiously at the pane of glass, and glaring in at him. Draco opened the window and unfastened the scroll from the bird's leg. Without waiting for an answer, the owl turned on the windowsill, spread its massive wings, and soared into the sky. Draco watched it until it was out of sight. Only then did he look down at the scroll in his hand.

He had not heard from The Baron all summer. That in itself was not unusual; he often went months between these jobs. Now, holding the letter in his hand, he realised he had been hoping never to hear from the man again. Because since the last time he had been summoned, Ginny had… happened. And knowing her, _loving_ her had changed everything for him. He knew now what it meant to love: he was not sure he would be able to kill again. Was he capable of performing an arbitrary act of hate just because someone commanded him to?

Slowly, he broke the seal on the little scroll and read the message there:

_Tea   
Today, four o'clock   
Sir Craig Dunbar-Wilkes_

Damn.

He slumped into his chair and rubbed at the bridge of his nose, feeling dread settle heavy in the pit of his stomach like a sickness that permeated all of him; not just his body, but through to his very soul. Ginny must not be allowed to find out about this: it would devastate her. Draco re-read the message to be sure he hadn't missed anything, and with his wand, set fire to it, dropping it into the clean-swept fireplace. He watched the flame lick at the parchment, reducing it to an airy sheet of ash until it collapsed on itself and crumbled to bits of white and grey fluff on the cold marble hearth. He looked at the mantle clock: two o'clock. Two hours then. Two hours to wait, and to decide what he was going to do.

For two hours, he pondered it. He paced the study and debated every angle, every option and possibility. It was no use; he felt hunted, caged like an animal bound for the slaughter, with no way of escape. Instinctively, he sought the outdoors: the open air and the limitless possibilities that were always there in the wide plains and majestic sweeps of the Highlands. He went for his broom, avoiding the direction of the waterfall. There was too much of Ginny there: If he went there, he would not be able to think objectively. Instead, he kicked off in the opposite direction, and for an hour he flew as hard and fast and dangerously as he could make himself fly. The end of it found him breathless and numb, and more frightened than he could remember having been in ten years, and yet he could not come up with any other answer for the choice that lay before him.

At three fifty-eight, he stepped into his Apparition Port dressed, not in his usual robes, but in black trousers, and a black cashmere turtleneck. In one pocket he carried a black stocking mask, in the other, black gloves. He wore his wand in his belt, and strapped to one leg, below his knee, and concealed by his trousers, was an eight-inch knife with a blade as hard as diamond and as sharp as a razor. He also wore sunglasses, though not as part of his disguise. These, he wore to hide his eyes from The Baron. And he did not wear the pair he had bought that day on Crete, with Ginny. He had made his decision; he could not wear anything associated with Ginny for something like this.

"Malfoy!" The man at the other end of the room stood, and came towards him, his arms outstretched like a long-lost father, or an old friend. Like a trap. Draco steeled himself not to flinch as The Baron enfolded him in an embrace and clapped him on the back, then held him back at arm's length to scrutinise him.

"You look well, Malfoy. Married life agrees with you, eh?"

Draco did not miss the shrewdness in the man's gaze. He shrugged easily. "Married life is a necessary evil for a few more weeks, Baron. I can't say it agrees with me, though." The gleam of approval in his boss' eyes was nearly imperceptible, but it was there all the same.

"She's a lovely young woman, Malfoy. Lucky thing you haven't got yourself… attached to her, so to speak. Keep the home and business fronts separate, that's the best way for everyone, eh? Especially when the _home front_ is a Ministry Auror."

Draco only smiled coldly, and inclined his head a fraction in agreement. He perfectly understood the implied threat.

The Baron swept an expansive hand towards a table set before the fireplace. "Sit, sit, and let me tell you all about your latest commission."

Draco sat on an intricately carved mahogany chair and accepted the cup of tea The Baron handed him. He held up his hand to decline any offer of scones or cakes. He could pretend to drink, but to even pretend to eat would surely choke him today.

The Baron chuckled. "Don't like to kill on a full stomach, eh Malfoy? Nice touch, that. It lends a certain elegance to the job."

Draco sipped at tea that went down his throat like sawdust, and did not answer.

"Now then," The Baron continued, lounging back in his chair with his own teacup resting on his ample stomach. "I've had a spot of bother with a Muggle called Gudoshnikova." Unnecessarily, he added, "He's a Russian."

Draco schooled his features into an expression of polite disinterest. The man was dying for him to ask questions, but he knew his boss well by now. The Baron would tell him only what he wanted him to know, and at his own pace. And in his opinion the less he knew about the job the better for his peace of mind.

When Draco did not comment, The Baron went on. "This Gudoshnikova fellow has something of a racket going in St Petersburg that involves combining his call girl services with a Muggle thing called the Internet. Photographs, that sort of thing."

"Pornography," Draco said bluntly.

The other man winced. "Such a crude term. There's no need for crassness, Malfoy. I assure you, it can be a very upscale business. And in the right hands – _my_ hands – it has been so, until now.

"I've been content to let Gudoshnikova have his little piece of the pie in Russia just like I have mine here in England. He runs his business the way he wants to run his and I run mine the way I want to run mine. It's all ticked along very smoothly. Suddenly though, Gudoshnikova's got big ideas about expanding his business into the British Isles. Frankly, Malfoy, the market, at this time and place, won't support both of us."

The Baron heaved a deep and exaggerated sigh, and picked up his teacup. "I tried to make him see this, but he continues to insist on budging into my little corner." He looked at Draco, over the rim of his cup. "He's been very troublesome: made one or two moves that were entirely out of order, and won't listen to reason." He took a careful drink, then set the teacup on the table and wiped his mouth. "I think it's time he was removed."

Draco finished his tea without tasting it, and set down his own cup. He was grateful for the sunglasses he wore, which hid the disgust and dread he knew must show in his eyes. Tonelessly, he said, "Where, and when?"

The other man stretched luxuriously. "Why not right now? You look as though you've come prepared, and it's seven o'clock in St Petersburg: just about dinnertime for my friend. I happen to know he dresses for dinner alone every evening, in his private dressing room."

"And… Apparition?"

"Taken care of. Here are the coordinates." He handed Draco a slip of parchment that contained a set of numbers, and a photograph of the man called Gudoshnikova. "You have a twenty minute window in which to Apparate in and back out without using a Port."

Draco stood up, barely considering the job ahead, grateful only for a chance to escape this man, who resembled nothing so much as an overgrown, poisonous spider. "I'd better not waste any time then," he said.

The Baron stood as well. "I know you'll make a clean job of it, Malfoy. Unless I hear from you, I'll assume all has gone well."

Draco didn't bother to answer, but turned back the way he'd come. In The Baron's Apparition Port, he glanced down at the slip of parchment in his hand, and willed away an unexpected wave of nausea. He concentrated on the coordinates. And then he was there; he had arrived in St Petersburg.

He had Apparated right into a cupboard filled with fur coats. From somewhere came the strains of very loud opera music, and someone singing in a throaty, off-key voice. The fur tickled his nose and got into his mouth, and he had to stifle a sneeze. The wardrobe door was open a crack, and cautiously he peered out.

A stocky man stood before a long mirror, adjusting a black bow tie, and singing to himself in Russian. He was dressed in a black tuxedo, and he looked soft, as though he were a man accustomed to safety and luxury: the kind of man who would never consider that his life might, at this very moment, be in danger. Well so much the better, thought Draco.

Carefully, silently, he pulled on his black gloves, and lit his wand. By the glow of the tip, he studied the photograph in his hand then looked back at the man's face, reflected in the mirror. There was no doubt they were the same person. Draco extinguished his wand, slipped the parchment scrap back into his pocket, and waited.

He did not have to wait long. Gudoshnikova gave his hair one last pat in front of the mirror, tugged at the tails of his coat, turned to examine his reflection from the back, and then, apparently satisfied, headed toward the very cupboard in which Draco was hiding.

He had done it so many times before that he hardly gave it a conscious thought now. In one long stride, Draco burst out of the wardrobe and drove his wand into the Russian man's ribs.

_"Petrificus Totalus!"_

The man stiffened, and wearing an expression of utter astonishment, keeled over backwards and landed on the floor with a loud 'thump'. Draco landed on top of him, pinning the man's chest with his knee. Swiftly, he glanced around to be sure the room was empty: it was. Someone might be along to check on the Muggle at any moment though: he had only seconds to do the job and get out of there. He drove his wand harder into the man's side, and took a deep breath.

And at that very instant, he heard Ginny's voice in his head. _"How can you live with yourself? How do you even sleep at night?"_ It was there for just a second, and then it was gone, but it was enough to throw his concentration off.

_"Avada Kedavra,"_ he hissed at the Russian. But nothing happened. No flash of green, no sudden slackening of the man's face, nothing. Draco felt a sudden, icy rush of fear. He tried it again. _"Avada Kedavra!"_ Gudoshnikova only gazed up at him, wide-eyed, terrified, and very, very much alive.

Draco stared back at him in frozen fear. Good god, what was wrong with him? He couldn't kill the man. He was saying the words, but he could not have meant them or they would have worked. He closed his eyes briefly, behind the stocking mask, and tried to summon up the will to hate this man enough to kill him, as he'd been told to do.

Instead, what he saw was a freckled face with shining brown eyes, touching the place over his heart and saying, "I'm proud of you."

'No!' He looked down at the stocky Russian man, who was beginning to squirm beneath his knee. It was this man's life or his own. Without hesitation, Draco pulled the knife from the sheath on his leg, and held it to the man's throat, pressing it in until a bead of dark blood welled up at the tip.

"You're dead," he whispered, and watched with satisfaction as the man's eyes widened. Good. He _should_ be afraid. Because he, Draco, was going to kill him right _now_.

But he couldn't make himself do it. He found that his breath was coming in short, hard gasps and his heart was hammering as though he'd been running a race. A cold trickle ran down between his shoulder blades, and under his gloves his hands were hot and wet with sweat. He took a deep, shuddering breath and tried once more to plunge the knife into the throat of the big man underneath him.

Instead, he felt the fingers of his hand open, and the knife slip to the floor. Hot tears pricked at his eyelids, and before he fully realised what he was doing, he was standing up, backing away. The Russian lay on the floor and blinked up at him, and Draco could have sworn he was sneering. His pulse was pounding so loudly he could hear it in his ears. He felt strange and dizzy: disoriented. He had to get out of there, before he fainted and got himself caught. Draco gave the man a vicious kick in the ribs, and twisted his wand.

And then he was home. Blessedly, safely home. He leaned against the wall of his own Apparition Port and slumped to the floor, pulling off his black stocking mask. He buried his head in his hands and let the tears slide freely down his face.

Oh gods, he couldn't do it. He couldn't kill the man he was supposed to kill. Within hours, The Baron would hear about this.

He was a dead man.

He rested his forehead on his knees and pulled in great, ragged breaths of air until he no longer felt that he was drowning. He willed away the tears – tears he hadn't shed in more than ten years – and forced his breathing into a more normal pattern. He could not afford to be weak right now. He had to think, and think clearly. He pulled himself to his feet. _Ginny._ He needed Ginny. She would tell him what to do. She would make everything all right again.

He found her upstairs in their bedroom, brushing her hair. She could not have been home from work for very long, but she had already changed into jeans and a tatty old tee-shirt, and she looked like an angel from Heaven itself. He went to her without a word and took her in his arms.

She laughed. "Hello to you too!"

He could not answer her, but only buried his face in her hair and hung on.

"Draco." There was concern in her voice now. "Draco, what's the matter?"

He drew a deep, shuddering breath, and still could not answer.

She pushed him gently away and looked at him from arm's length. He watched as she took in his black clothes, his face that must have looked as drawn and haunted as he felt. "My word," she said quietly. "You look like you've been dragged through a hedge backward. Come and sit down." She drew him over to the edge of the bed, and sat, pulling him down to sit next to her.

Numbly, he obeyed.

"What is it?" she asked, taking both his hands, and lacing her fingers through his. "What's happened, Draco?"

He closed his eyes briefly. And then he said, "What do you know about Secret Keepers?"

Silence. He watched her face change as the realisation of what he meant dawned on her. He was grateful that she did not ask him any questions. Instead, she only whispered, "My father would do it."

He told her all about it. How The Baron had summoned him and how, for the first time, he had not been able to kill someone. He wanted to tell her why: to say it was because she had come into his life and changed the very essence of who he was. To tell her that he loved her. But he couldn't do it. There was something in him that was still too afraid of what would happen if she ever _stopped_ loving him. And she might stop, now that she knew what he had just tried to do. He searched her face, looking for some sign that she hated him now.

Instead, Ginny took his face in both her hands and leaned her forehead against his. "Go see my father," she said. "He'll perform the spell, I know he will."

"He'll despise me for playing both sides, when all along he thought I was so good."

"He'll get over it. Draco, you don't have any choice."

She was right, of course. He could not afford to try and salvage his pride through all this. Arthur Weasley was the obvious choice to be his Secret Keeper – and Ginny's too, because they were both going to need one. And time was running short. He had to go and see Arthur and tell him everything, and trust that Arthur would be as good about it as Ginny was being.

He stood up. "I'll go right now and… and explain things to him."

"Do you want me to come with you?"

"No, I… I think I want to talk to him by myself first. After that, if he'll agree to it, I'll bring him back here to perform the ceremony."

"He'll agree to it," she said, "but hurry. You don't have any time to lose. The Baron will know by now that you didn't kill this man."

"Yes. And… Ginny… if something should happen to me…"

"Don't say that!" She sat up straight on the side of the bed, her eyes snapping at him. "Nothing's going to happen to you!"

"I hope not. But if it does, you should know this." He went to the small writing desk in the corner, and found a piece of scrap parchment. Carefully, he inked a quill and wrote the words, _Craig Dunbar-Wilkes._ He blew on the ink to dry it, and then folded the parchment and slipped it into her hand. "This is the name of the man who calls himself The Baron. If something happens to me…" he swallowed hard. He still could not bring himself to suggest that Ginny turn to Harry Potter in a time of crisis. So he simply said, "You'll know what to do."

Ginny took the paper and put it into her pocket without looking at it. "I won't need it," she said firmly. She stepped close to him and put her arms around him, burying her head in his chest. "I love you, Draco."

The words, as always, went through him like a shock. A wonderful, frightening shock that he would never, as long as he lived, grow tired of feeling. "I… I know," he said. He kissed her gently on the forehead, and stepped away. "I need to go now."

She nodded. He reached over the mantle and took a handful of Floo powder. He threw it in, and when the flames flared bright and green, he looked at her once more. He should say it back to her, he thought. He loved her; she deserved to know that. He opened his mouth. "Ginny, I…"

He saw that her eyes were bright with unshed tears.

"I'll be back soon," he said, and stepped into the flames.

Ginny went to the library to await Draco and her father. She waited six hours. When midnight came and there was no sign of either of them she could no longer escape the fear that something had gone horribly wrong.

She reached into the teakwood box of Floo powder, and tossed a handful into the fireplace. Kneeling on the hearth rug, she put her head into the green flames and said, "The Burrow!"

When her head had stopped spinning, she was looking into her parents' kitchen. All was dark. She frowned. She started to call out, but then thought better of it. Instead, she pulled her head out, then stood up and while the flames were still green, stepped into the fireplace.

This time, she stepped out into The Burrow's kitchen. The house was silent. Not a light shone in any of the downstairs rooms. She pulled her wand and crept silently up the stairs, adrenaline singing through her veins like a charge of electricity. She stopped outside her parents' bedroom door. It was open, and here too, everything was dark and silent except for the sound of her father's gentle, whiffling snores.

"Mum?" she said, aloud. "Dad?"

No answer. She went to her mother's side of the bed and knelt down, feeling like a little girl again, who'd woken from a bad dream, or been sick in the night. She shook her mother's shoulder. "Mum, wake up!"

Molly came awake with a start and sat up. "Good lord, Ginny! You frightened me half to death!" She rubbed at her eyes and shook her head, then peered more closely at her daughter. "Whatever are you doing here at this time of night? What's wrong?"

"Where's Draco?" Ginny whispered.

"What?"

"_Draco!_ He was supposed to be here, earlier."

Molly reached for her wand on the bedside table, and lit a lamp with it. At the sudden flare of light, Arthur grunted, and rolled over, turning his back to them. Ginny's mother stared at her.

"He was never here."

Oh Merlin. She felt the bottom of her stomach drop out. "I think we'd better wake up Dad."

Molly reached over and shook her husband firmly. "Arthur! Arthur, wake up."

With a snort, he came awake, and sat up groggily, his nightcap askew on his head. "What? Who's there?"

Ginny was nearly in tears by now. "Dad! It's me. Wake up, come on!" When she was certain her father was fully awake and listening, she went on. "Have you seen Draco tonight?"

Arthur looked at her blankly. "No. Haven't seen him for days."

A nearly paralysing fear washed over her, and she clutched at her mother's arm. Silently, Molly slid out from under the covers and reached for her housecoat. "Let's go down and have a cup of tea, and you can tell us what's going on."

Over the comfort of tea in the old familiar kitchen, she told her parents everything; how Draco had been working for Dark of the Moon, and how he'd wanted to get out of it, and was counting on Arthur to be their Secret Keeper.

Her father frowned. Heavily, he said, "He never showed up, Ginny."

"Maybe he went to your office to look for you there?"

"Maybe. But why wouldn't he come here, when he didn't find me at the Ministry?" Ginny could not think of an answer to this.

"Is it possible," asked her father, very gently, "that this… _Baron_ could be watching your Floo?"

They sat and stared at one another in mounting horror, and Ginny felt a sick feeling rise up in her throat. If The Baron knew Draco hadn't killed the Russian man, and if The Baron had him now…

Would she ever see him again?


	18. Chapter 18

_**A/N:** This is the end. A million thanks to **Gabriele:** without his formatting work, this story would never have seen the light of day, here at FanFiction net._  
**Editor's Note:** This isn't really an update, since the story is all done and finished, but I have a special little tidbit for you all on the autor's profile site. Just click on the author's name and go check it out! And don't forget to review.

• • • • •

**Chapter 18**

Arthur went back to Four Winds with Ginny, to sit through what remained of that long night, and to wait. Ginny curled herself into Draco's armchair and watched the library fireplace. The August air, coming in through the open French doors, was warm and humid. She did not light the fire, but instead waited for the first sign of telltale green flames to come shooting down the chimney. On her lap, she held the little blue volume of MacNiece poetry. At intervals, she tried to read it but the words kept running together, and made no sense to her, and in the end she gave it up. Lolly brought them tea and toast, which sat on the tray and grew cold. Still, Draco did not come home. When the edges of the horizon began to soften with light, and the first notes of birdsong broke the stillness of the night like pebbles pocking the surface of a pond, Arthur stood up and gathered his cloak.

"I'm going in to make a few discreet enquiries at the Ministry, Ginny. I have a friend in the MLES, and another who's an Unspeakable: they'll be able to nose around without being too obvious."

"Dad, tell me honestly… what do you think happened to him?"

"Not a thing," Arthur said firmly. "Put that worry out of your mind: Draco's going to be all right. Likely, he's just lying low for awhile, or perhaps he has something else up his sleeve altogether: something we haven't guessed at yet."

But Ginny was not so sure. When he'd left Four Winds the night before, Draco had been intent on going to see Arthur; of that, she was certain. He had been in no frame of mind to suddenly change his plans somewhere between Floo grates. "Let me know the minute you hear something," she told her father.

He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. "You get some rest and leave the worrying to me. I'll be in touch."

She tried to rest, and eventually she did doze off, tucked into Draco's side of the big bed, with the heavy, velvet curtains pulled tightly around it, to block out the morning sunlight. First, though, she stationed Lolly in front of the library fireplace with instructions that she was to be awakened immediately if there was any news.

Some hours later, she awoke on her own, feeling thickheaded and disoriented. She knew at once that there had been no word of Draco: if there had been, Lolly would have come and told her. She turned over and stared at the scarlet bed curtains, despair seeping through her and filling her, like water through a sponge.

"Draco, where _are_ you?"

She was answered only by silence.

Her father flooed in at noon, to tell her he'd been able to find out nothing, but that he was still working on it. "Is there any chance, Ginny, that Draco might be hiding out somewhere?"

She could not answer him: she did not know.

It was not until after her father had gone that it occurred to Ginny: she had the name of The Baron. If he had Draco, it would be a start towards finding him. She was still wearing the same jeans she'd worn the afternoon before: she groped in the front pocket, pulling out the parchment scrap Draco had given her before he left. She had not looked at it, at the time, but now she sat down on the sofa and unfolded it.

_Craig Dunbar-Wilkes_, it said. Ginny waited, expecting to feel a chill, or a thrill of fear at holding in her hands the identity of such an infamous and powerful person. What she felt instead was a flash of resentment. How dare this man demand the things he demanded of Draco? How dare he ruin their lives by keeping them – both of them – captive to his whims? She refused to fear him. He was nothing but a name on a scrap of parchment, and there had never been any reason to be afraid of a name: Harry had taught her that. She crumpled the parchment scrap in her hand, and stuffed it back into her pocket.

Harry. She considered contacting him. He would be able to find this man at once – they knew he was on the Isle of Wight, after all – and if the Baron had Draco, they could get him back. She hesitated. Her father thought Draco might be hiding out. If he were, he would not thank her for stirring things up, and calling attention to the fact. He especially would not thank her for involving Harry Potter.

She sat there, weighing the options, and in a flash of inspiration the answer was clear to her: Quicksilver. She would go to Lowen Kincaid and David Gordon, and tell them everything. They would be able to find Draco.

Lowen and David came as soon as they heard the news that Draco was missing. They were his best mates, and it was difficult for Ginny to tell them their friend had not been everything they thought he was. Her father stood with her, though, as she did it. Together, they recounted the story of Dark of the Moon, of The Baron, of Draco's deception. And all the while she was talking, Ginny had an agonising sense that she was betraying her husband. She felt like an executioner, putting the seal of death on what had once been a wonderful friendship. It couldn't be helped though; she didn't know where else to turn.

Lowen and David took the news quietly. When she had finished speaking, the two cousins looked at each other in silence. And then they both said at the same time, "What are we waiting for? Let's go find him, and bring him back." Ginny could not hold back the tears.

"I'm going with you," she told them. It was something she had already decided: she could not sit still at home and do nothing while her husband might be in mortal danger.

All three men protested at once, her father the most loudly and vehemently of all. She was adamant. "If you won't take me with you, I'm going alone." They stared at her, aghast. "We're wasting time," she said coolly. "I'm ready to leave now. Is it going to be with, or without the rest of you?"

They tried to argue, but she was firm. Hadn't she fought in the war, the same as the rest of them? And wasn't she a Ministry Auror? And wasn't it, after all, her own husband whose life might be in danger?

In the end, they agreed only because they couldn't stop her anyway. Arthur took the parchment with Dunbar-Wilkes' name on it. "I'll run this through my contacts," he told them all. I should know his whereabouts in an hour."

• • • • •

An hour and a half later, Ginny found herself standing in an Apparation Port on the Isle of Wight, in front of a shop that sold women's shoes.

Her father consulted his notes. "Just down this street, then." He looked at Ginny with some concern. "Sure you won't wait here, until we return?"

She rolled her eyes, and elbowed her way to the door of the Port, stepping out onto the pavement. The air was chilly and dim in the gathering dusk, and up and down the thoroughfare lights had already begun to wink on in the shops. "Where are we?"

"Newport."

"Which way, then?"

Her father opened his mouth, hesitated, and with a shrug, closed it again. 'Good,' Ginny thought: he was through trying to argue her out of this. Arthur turned up a side street and Ginny followed, Lowen and David falling into step with her, one on either side. She understood their concern, and flashed them each a wordless look of thanks.

The street was narrow, and gloomy under the widespread branches of giant, ancient oak trees. Small homes of stucco, or stone, gave way to larger ones, spaced farther apart. At the top of the street, they came to a high, iron gate, through which they could see the largest house of all. Arthur halted in front of it. "This is it."

Ginny looked up at the house. For the home of a mafia Lord, she thought, it looked surprisingly modest. It was a mere two stories, built of native stone. White pillars supported a first-storey balcony, but that did not seem unusual: there were several similar homes in the neighbourhood. What was most impressive was the high, stonewall by which the house and its grounds were cordoned off from the rest of the street. It stretched away to the right and left of the gate, and appeared to completely surround the property. Ginny pulled her wand. At once, it began to hum and vibrate in her hand: the grounds were surrounded by Imperturbable Charms a good two feet thick. In unspoken consent, the four of them shrank back into the shadow of the high wall.

"It's covered with Imperturbables," Ginny told them, in a hushed voice, "and there'll be anti-Apparation wards too, I expect."

Arthur, David, and Lowen looked at each other. "Best start thinking of how we're going to get in," her father said.

"Nothing easier." Ginny said it without hesitation. "We'll go in underground."

The men stared at her. David was the first to ask. "What makes you think we can do that?"

"Because," she answered, "I built a network of spells like this just last winter: it was around a children's home, in Portugal. My job was to make the whole compound as secure as possible. I can feel it in my wand: the enchantments around this place are similar to the ones I built around that children's home."

"So, you can break them, then?"

"No, I'm not a Breaker, I'm a Builder. But I think I can figure out a way through them, and I think that way is to go in underground. The Imperturbables probably don't extend very far under the surface; if we can get right up against the foundation, we can Apparate through the wall."

"So," Lowen cleared his throat, "a _Talipedes_ Charm, do you think?"

"I've never done one before."

David and Lowen spoke at the same time. "I have."

"Tunnelling will kick up a load of dirt on the lawn," Arthur said. He peered through the gate again. "Although the whole East side is in shadow already. Do we want to try that route, then?"

"I'm in," said David.

"Me too," Lowen and Ginny said at the same time.

They crept along the outside of the wall, staying well-concealed in the shadows, and rounded the corner. When they were halfway along the east wall, Arthur held up his hand to halt them.

"This looks about right. Best do it quick."

David took a sounding of the ground with his wand. "The walls don't go down more than a metre," he said, "But let's say two, to be on the safe side."

Lowen pushed back the sleeves of his Muggle sweatshirt, and rolled his head once, to loosen up his shoulder muscles. "Right, then." Training his wand on the ground a few feet away from the wall, he muttered, "_Talipedes terra!"_

At once, a hole appeared, and as it steadily grew the earth began to pile up around their feet, until it reached their knees. Two minutes later, Lowen stopped, panting and perspiring. "That's hard work, that is. How far down are we, David?"

David took another sounding. "Go down another thirty centimetres, for good measure."

Lowen wiped his forehead with his sleeve, and trained his wand on the hole again.

When David pronounced it deep enough, Lowen kicked aside some of the dirt, and sat on the edge of the hole. "Give me a few minutes to tunnel under the wall. If it's safe for the rest of you to come down, I'll send back red sparks." He lowered himself into the blackness.

It was nearly dark by now, but Ginny could just make out the heaps of earth being pushed to the surface of the grass, as though a giant mole were tunnelling underground. At the edge of the wall the piles stopped. She watched the hole, holding her breath, and could sense David and her father doing the same beside her. Would Lowen make it under the wall?

A moment later, a sparse shower of red sparks appeared at their feet.

"All right, then!" There was a note of triumph in Arthur's whisper. "Gordon, you go next and give Lowen a hand. You next, Ginny, and I'll bring up the rear."

When it was her turn, Ginny sat on the edge of the hole and dropped down into it, hitting the bottom before she expected to. Down here, it was very cold with a darkness that seemed to press in on her like a thick, clammy blanket. She shuddered. "_Lumos."_ The tip of her wand lit up, and before her she saw the mouth of the tunnel.

It was low, and though she was not tall, she had to duck her head to keep from scraping the top. David and Lowen, she discovered, when she came upon them a few moments later, were digging on their knees.

"Check our direction, Ginny," David panted over his shoulder at her.

She placed her wand on the flat of her hand. "_Point me,"_ she said. The wand tip swung around to indicate North; the tunnel was still going in an eastward direction. "Looks good," she told them.

In all, it took them nearly an hour to dig through to the foundation of the house. When they finally reached it, David and Lowen sank back against the wall, exhausted. "Give us a minute," Lowen wheezed. "We'll splinch ourselves if we try to Apparate in like this."

While the two of them caught their breath, Ginny ran her wand lightly over the circle of exposed stone foundation. Nothing. "We were right!" she said triumphantly. "There are no wards or spells this far down."

"I'll go first," Arthur said. "We don't know what's on the other side of that wall. Let's pray that it's not The Baron's bedroom. Once we're all in, we'll split up – the usual operation. Ginny, you'll stay with me. You all have your earpieces…" he reached into his pocket, and pulled out a flesh-coloured plastic dot, which he handed to her. She slipped it into her right ear. Her father leaned over and tapped the side of her head. "_Audio."_ At once, Ginny ceased hearing his voice in the tunnel, and heard it instead, inside her ear. "Give a shout if you find him. If not, we'll regroup back here in ten minutes."

She put her hand on her father's arm, and he twisted his wand. The next second, they were standing in a cool, dark place. A moment later, Lowen and David joined them. They listened carefully; all was silent.

"I think it's safe to light a wand." Ginny heard her father's voice in her ear, and then they were gazing around themselves at floor-to-ceiling racks filled with dusty bottles. It was the wine cellar. Arthur gave a terse nod to the other men, and they melted away into the shadows, each of them going in a different direction. He motioned to Ginny, and headed for the door across the room.

Cautiously, they pulled the door open, and peered out. They were looking into an empty corridor, lined with torches that flickered and flared, throwing strange, menacing shapes dancing over the walls. There was no one in sight, and they stepped out into the passageway.

"Leave the door open," Arthur said in her ear, "so we can find it again when it's time to leave." He started off to the right, but all at once, Ginny was overcome by the nearly tangible certainty that they should be going to the left, instead.

She put her hand on his arm. "No, this way, Dad."

He looked at her strangely. "Why?"

"I don't know. I just… I'm sure this is the right way."

Her father frowned, but said, "All right, then." They moved to the left. At the end of the corridor, the passageway turned right, then right again. As they followed it, treading close to the wall with light, noiseless steps, Ginny felt the growing conviction that they were indeed coming closer to Draco. There was a kind of sixth sense awakened in her that she did not understand. It was as if the element of Wind in him were feeding the element of Fire in her, and pulling her towards him. It was, perhaps, what had been happening between the two of them all year long, and she was just now recognising it for what it was.

When they came to a place where the corridor branched in two different directions, she turned left without hesitation. She nearly passed by the room before she realised it was the right one. "Here, Dad; he's in here!" She was nearly trembling now, from nerves and anticipation. She was as certain that they would find Draco behind that door as she had ever been of anything.

Arthur tried the door handle. To Ginny's surprise, it turned easily in his hand. The room was not lit, and from out of the darkness, a horrible smell assaulted them; the odours of blood and vomit, and of burnt flesh. Ginny's skin crawled. She gagged, and clapped her hand over her nose and mouth.

When her father's wand lit up the room, Ginny felt the blood drain from her head. She reached out to steady herself against the damp stone wall. Draco was indeed there, though his face had been beaten so badly as to be hardly recognisable. He lay on a bare mattress, his arms and legs shackled to the wall, though this hardly seemed to be necessary. He was completely limp, and for one wild second, she thought he was dead. She flew to him and dropped to her knees. "_Draco!"_ He was breathing. Just barely, but he was breathing. She buried her hands in hair that was filthy and matted with blood, and turned his face towards her. "Draco, can you hear me?" His eyes were staring and unfocussed, and he did not move.

Behind her, she heard her father speaking to David and Lowen, by way of their earpieces. "We've got him. Let's get out of here." He pointed his wand at the shackles around Draco's wrists and ankles, and they fell to the mattress. "Let's go, Ginny." He pointed his wand next at Draco. "_Levicorpus!"_ Together, with Draco floating between them, they started back along the passageway, the way they had come.

Behind them, they heard a shout and at the same instant, a jet of red light streaked past and hit the wall ahead. Reflexively, Ginny ducked. The Stunner ricocheted off the wall and whistled back over her head. She dropped into a crouch and spun around.

"_Expelliarmus!"_ she cried, pointing her wand blindly. The man at the far end of the corridor cried out again, and she knew she had scored a hit.

And then, at the same time, she and her father shouted, "_Stupefy!"_

It was over before Ginny could take in what had happened. The man lay in a heap on the floor of the passageway, his wand lying where it had landed, on the stones.

"Wait here," Arthur told her. "He may be pretending." He approached the man cautiously, pausing to kick the fallen wand back in Ginny's direction. Ginny picked it up and in one, vicious motion, broke it over her knee.

"It's all right," her father called, after a moment, "he's unconscious. But let's get out of here before he wakes up."

She was propping up Draco, who had started to fall the moment Arthur's wand was off him. Now, she heaved him to a half-sitting position against the wall, and ran to her father. She looked down at the unconscious man on the floor. He was small and wiry, with protruding front teeth he had tried to minimise by growing a moustache. His eyes, behind wire-framed glasses, were closed. "Do you suppose this is The Baron?" she asked.

"From the way he's dressed, I'd say he's someone of importance," her father replied.

Ginny considered the man. He was dressed in robes at least as fine as the ones Draco usually wore, but otherwise he looked so perfectly… normal. He didn't look frightening in the least. This great legend was, after all, only a small, sorry-looking man, and they had felled him with the simplest of spells.

"Come on; someone's bound to miss him, and come looking for him." Ginny helped her father levitate the man into the room where they'd found Draco. With a flick of their wands, they dumped him unceremoniously onto the bloodstained mattress. Arthur locked the manacles around his wrists and ankles with a satisfying _click_.

"Make them nice and tight," Ginny advised him. They closed the door behind them, leaving the unconscious Baron alone in the dark, and went back to Draco.

It was the sight, again, of Draco's bloody face that galvanised Ginny's momentary feeling of triumph into something different. Kneeling beside him, seeing the eyes that were still glazed and unblinking, as though he were dead, Ginny felt a pure, livid fury course through her veins. The man in that room had done this thing to Draco. He had _no right_. It was suddenly not enough just to win. She wanted The Baron to know _who_ had beaten him. She put her hand into her coat pocket, and felt it close around a tube of lipstick. "Wait, Dad."

Before her father could stop her, she turned and slipped back into the dark room. She lit her wand, pulled the cap off the lipstick, and carefully, on the wall above the man's head, where it would be clearly visible to whoever found him, she drew the sign of Mercury's wings.

Somehow, they got Draco back to the wine cellar, where they found Lowen and David waiting for them. Between the four of them, they managed to levitate his limp, battered form along the tunnel, and back to the lawn outside the stone wall.

"Don't bother going back to the Port," Arthur said tersely. "We'll Apparate from here."

And then they were back at Four Winds, the four of them packed into the little Apparation port, with Draco propped up between them.

"_Lolly!"_ Ginny shouted. At once, the house-elf appeared.

At the sight of her master, Lolly gasped, and began to make little, whimpering sounds in her throat.

'Oh lord,' thought Ginny, 'don't go to pieces on me now.'

"Get hold of yourself, Lolly," she said sharply. "Help us get him to the bed, and then go call Healer MacLeod."

Together, they levitated Draco up the stairs, and onto the big bed, and Lolly flew to call the Healer. Anxiously, Ginny examined her husband's face, while her father and David and Lowen hovered in the background. The blood appeared to be seeping from a gash across one cheekbone. He was still wearing the black cashmere turtleneck he had left in, though it was filthy now, and stiff with dried blood. Carefully, she trained her wand on the fabric, and cut a line up the centre of it. She pushed the shirt aside. At the sight that greeted her, Ginny felt her knees give way under her.

He had not just been beaten, he had been _tortured_. In the place where the Quicksilver tattoo had been, the skin had been systematically flayed away. Across his stomach, someone had burned the letters _DMS_ into his skin. The flesh was charred black there, and beginning to fester around the edges. Ginny felt bile rise up in her throat. She ran to the bathroom and was violently sick in the toilet. Afterwards, she sank to the floor and leaned her back against the cool porcelain of the bathtub, pushing back the darkness that threatened to engulf her. Trying just to breathe.

Her father knelt beside her, and she leaned her head into his shoulder until she felt strong enough to stand on her own. Healer MacLeod arrived just then, and after a brief, hushed consultation with Lowen and David, sent them all out of the room.

In the corridor outside the bedroom, Arthur turned to her. "Ginny," he said urgently, "we don't have any time to spare: you and Draco are going to need a Secret Keeper."

She nodded, unable to speak.

"Gordon, Kincaid, you'll serve as witnesses." David and Lowen came and put their hands on Ginny's shoulders, and she bowed her head while her father began to speak over her the words of the ancient magic that would hide them from The Baron. By the time the Healer opened the door to beckon them in, it was over. She and Draco were safe.

• • • • •

In the bedroom, Ginny's eyes flew at once to Draco's face. His eyes were closed, and his face was cleaner. He looked peaceful. "How is he?"

Healer MacLeod shook his head gravely. "It doesn't look good, I'm afraid. He's been badly beaten, and sustained a good deal of damage to his internal organs."

"But… but you can fix that, right?" She heard the quaver in her own voice.

The old man smiled wearily at her, but his voice, when he spoke, was kind. "I'm only a Healer, Ms Weasley, not a miracle worker. There are some things that, once broken, can never be put together again."

Hot tears rose up in her eyes, and her nose burned with the effort of holding them back. "No," she whispered. "He _will_ get better. He _will_. You wait and see." She stepped around Healer MacLeod and went to Draco's side. She picked up his hand, which lay cool and limp in hers, and said it to him. "You'll get better, Draco. You'll be fine." She looked up at the Healer. "Would it be better if we moved him to St Mungo's?"

"We can if you like, however, there's nothing they can do for him there that I can't do here. I'll stay as long as it takes, of course, and see him through this."

"Thank you." She hesitated before asking the next question. "Can you tell what they did to him?"

"Some of it."

"Then… maybe I could have a little time alone with him, and afterwards we could all have a cup of tea, and you could tell us about it?"

"Of course." He spoke gently. "I'll wait in the kitchen. Take all the time you want." The old man backed out the door, and Arthur, Lowen, and David followed him.

Only Lolly remained with her. Ginny looked at the little house-elf, who had been standing at the foot of the bed all this time, fidgeting uncomfortably. "Would you like to speak to him, Lolly? I think maybe he can hear you, if you do."

The house-elf's eyes grew wide, and uncertainly she approached the side of the bed. She reached out a finger and touched it to Draco's cheek, then let her hand fall back to her side. Ginny saw that tears were leaking from the corners of her bulging eyes, and streaming down the ancient, leathery cheeks. "Master must get well again," Lolly whispered. "Lolly does not know what she will do if Master does not." She turned away, and with her little shoulders drooping, trudged from the room.

When she had gone, Ginny closed the door behind her, and climbed up onto the bed beside Draco. Carefully, she pulled the quilt aside and lay down beside him, fitting herself to the length of him and resting her cheek against his shoulder. She half-expected him to turn to her and put his arm around her as he had done so many times before. Instead, he lay there, absolutely, frighteningly still except for the occasional rasping breath.

"Draco."

The room was very quiet.

"Draco, you _will_ get better."

But he made no sound, no move, and after awhile, Ginny slipped out of the bed and went downstairs to talk to the Healer.

He was able to tell them nothing she hadn't already surmised. Draco had been beaten and someone had used the _Cruciatus_ curse on him, repeatedly. Some of his internal organs had been lacerated and he had lost a great deal of blood. That was all they knew. And so there was nothing to do but to wait and see what would happen.

Lolly fixed up Ginny's old room for Healer MacLeod to sleep in, but Ginny herself insisted on staying at Draco's side nearly every hour of the day. After three days of this, when there had been no change at all in Draco's condition, she sent the Healer home, assuring him that she would call for him as soon as there was a change.

David and Fiona Gordon came most days to see Draco, as did Lowen and Betsy Kincaid. When Ginny tried to apologise, through her tears, for Draco's deception of them over the years, they brushed her apologies aside. Everyone had skeletons in the closet, they told her firmly. What was important was that Draco had meant to change. They had always known him as a good and brave man; as part of Quicksilver. It was how they would go on thinking of him.

Her mother and father came every day as well. One day, after Draco had been home a week, and had neither declined nor improved, Molly told Ginny that her brothers were asking to see her.

"They feel so badly about your birthday dinner, Ginny. They're concerned about you, and about Draco. They want you to know that."

But at the mention of her brothers, Ginny felt something hard and bitter rise in her chest. She shook her head. "They were _hoping_ something like this would happen: Fred nearly said as much, the day I told them all I was married to Draco. Well, they can gloat as much as they please now, but they can do it on their own; I don't want them around."

"Ginny!" her mother protested. "What a thing to say! Your brothers can be harsh but they never actually _meant_ that they wanted something like this to happen. You _know_ that's true."

But Ginny shook her head. She had enough to think about right now: she wasn't ready to face her brothers on top of it.

She spent most of the days that followed reading aloud to Draco. The days slipped into a week, and then became two weeks as she read him _Kidnapped_, and _Treasure Island_, and _Gulliver's Travels_. Once or twice, she tried to read poetry, but found that the words stuck in her throat. It was too difficult, and she went back to the easier adventure stories instead. He never responded, never so much as flickered an eyelid, but she was certain he could hear her. And so she read doggedly on, stories she knew he would like. She told him often that she loved him. At intervals, she slipped to her knees beside the bed and prayed, wordless, pleading prayers for God to bring him back to her.

Lolly bathed him every day, caring for him as she had when he'd been a baby; changing the linens and the bandages, singing little songs in a language Ginny could not understand. At night, Ginny lay down on a cot beside the big bed and tried to sleep. More often than not, though she lay awake for hours, holding his limp hand and listening to his harsh, shallow breathing. Waiting for something to change.

Their one-year anniversary came and went, and one day Ginny realised with some surprise that she and Draco had been married exactly a year and a day. They had made it: the curse that had hung over their families for hundreds of years had been broken. After all the turmoil leading up to it, in the end it had happened so quietly and unobtrusively that she had nearly missed it.

She recalled that day, over a year ago, when she and Draco had met for the first time at the _Blue Onion Pub:_ how much she had dreaded the year ahead! And Draco had said to her, "It's a year of our lives, do you hear me? A year. We can do anything for a year." Now, she looked at his battered, beloved face lying still and pale on the pillow, and thought, 'No, Draco, not this. We had no idea we'd come to this.'

It was during the night that Ginny felt the change in Draco. She had been sleeping lightly, dreaming that she was running across a wide moor. She was running, running, towards the foot of a mountain, but never coming any closer to it. She was alone on the vast sweep of the plain, and there was nothing to do but to keep on running… And then the wind began to blow. Only, it wasn't a wind that blew towards her, but rather from behind. And it was not blowing _over_ her at all, but _through_ her. An icy draft was sucking through her, pulling something vital away from her…

"_No!"_ She sat up in bed, her nightshirt soaked with sweat, staring wildly into the blackness of the room. That wind; it was like the wind that had blown through her when she had drunk from Draco's chalice on her wedding day, only… it was different. There was something very wrong about this wind.

"No." She said it aloud – loudly – into the night. "No! Draco, do not _leave me_. Do _not_…" She groped for him with one hand, and with the other, found her wand on the bedside table. As her fingers closed around the handle she heard a tiny, clinking sound, felt the barest brush of metal, and froze.

The wedding ring she had worn for a year had come free and fallen from her thumb. Ginny's breath caught in her chest. She gripped the wand, afraid to light it. For a full minute, she sat in the darkness, with tears pooling in her eyes, spilling over onto her face, sitting very still lest something inside her shatter. _No._

At last, she gathered her courage and took a deep breath: "_Lumos!"_

She knew as soon as she saw his face that he had left her forever. His features had not changed, but there was something missing, some inner light, some essence of who he was. Gone. She rested her hand on his chest. It did not move. There was no heartbeat. There was nothing at all.

She closed her eyes, giving in to the sorrow that welled up inside her. It rolled over her like a tide, bearing her up and carrying her out on waves of grief. "_Draco,"_ she whispered. "_Oh, Draco."_ And she laid her head on his chest and wept, both for the things that had been, and for the things that would never be.

• • • • •

**Epilogue**

The next day, Ron came to see her. Mercifully, she was not alone. Betsy and Fiona were both there, and so was her mother, 'seeing to arrangements', as they put it. Lolly had washed Draco's body with infinite tenderness, and dressed him in his finest robes. Now, he lay upstairs, in the bedroom he and Ginny had shared, but the door was firmly shut, and she could not bring herself to go up there and look at him.

She was obeying her mother and trying to rest, when Ron came. Lolly admitted him, and he stood, hovering on the threshold of the sitting room where Ginny lay on a sofa. She sat up when she saw him. They looked at one another, and in his eyes she saw a wealth of emotions: sorrow, regret, shame. Wordlessly, she held out her arms to him and he came to her, kneeling down and letting her bury her head in his shoulder.

"I'm sorry," he said at last, his voice thick and uncertain.

"I know."

"I'm an idiot."

"No, Ron. There was just too much history there… I should have understood."

"I'm sorry. Not just for the things I said and the way I acted, but… well, that all of this had to happen to you."

"Thanks."

He sat back on his heels and looked at her. "Fred and George want to come, and Hermione and the rest of them. Can they?"

She closed her eyes. "Not today; maybe tomorrow. It's too much, today." She thought of something else, and opened her eyes. "Does Harry know?"

A little silence. Then, "Yeah. He's pretty hurt."

"Hurt? Why should he be hurt?"

"I don't know; because you never told him, I suppose."

She gave a short, hard laugh. "Why should I have told Harry? He and I were finished long ago: he had no claims on me."

Ron shrugged uncomfortably. "Maybe Harry didn't see it that way."

• • • • •

Later that afternoon, she found herself wandering through the house, picking things up and putting them down again, with no clear idea of what she should do next. She was avoiding the bedroom, and she knew it. It was cowardly of her, but she did not care: she could not face his body. Not yet.

In the foyer, she came upon the set of outer robes he had been wearing the day before he disappeared. She lifted them from their hook, and held them against her cheek. Draco's clothing; Draco's scent. She breathed it in, holding it inside her. For a moment, he seemed so real that she half-expected him to step out of the Apparation port and put his arms around her.

After a moment, she realised there was something stiff in the breast pocket: something that did not fold with the rest of the fabric. She reached inside and pulled it out. It was a creased and faded photograph. At once, she recognised it as the one that had been taken at Sarah's wedding, all those months ago. It was only half the photograph: the side with Sarah in it had been completely cut off. There remained only herself, ginger hair curling about her shoulders, waving and blowing kisses at the camera. Draco had had it all the time. Had carried it in his pocket, next to his heart. Now, she sank into the chair and held the crumpled picture to her own heart, overwhelmed in a wash of love and sorrow, and a sense of utter loss. After a bit, she looked at the photo again, and turned it over. The back was covered with a familiar, spiky handwriting:

_September has come, it is hers  
Whose vitality leaps in the autumn, whose nature prefers  
Trees without leaves and a fire in the fireplace.  
So I give her this month and the next  
Though the whole of my year should be hers who has rendered already  
So many of its days intolerable or perplexed;  
Who has left a scent on my life, and left my walls  
Dancing over and over with her shadow;  
Whose hair is twined in all my waterfalls,  
And all of London littered with remembered kisses._

He was a better man than the one she had married a year ago. She would always be proud that he had meant to do the right thing. She was grateful that he had learned to love her. It did not matter that he had never said it to her; she knew it as surely as if it were something he had told her every day: Draco _had_ loved her.

And was she a different person than she had been a year ago? That was not so easy for her to see. She knew that life, for her, would no longer be as black-and-white as she had once thought it. Other than that, she could not say how she was different. Only time would tell.

• • • • •

She had Draco's body cremated. They had talked about it once, on one of the long, summer nights they'd spent lying under the stars. He had told her that this was what he wanted. Of course, he hadn't meant for it to be so soon; they'd both talked of death that night as though it were something hypothetical and far… distant. They'd survived a war, after all, and they were in love: weren't they invincible?

In spite of the fact that there would be no burial, Ginny felt she should have a headstone to commemorate Draco. His parents were long gone; he had no brothers or sisters; he had no children. She did not want him passing from the world with nothing to mark that he had ever been here.

She went to see a man at Magical Monuments, and asked him how much a nice headstone would cost.

"Ninety Galleons for our top design, Madam," he told her, working a silver toothpick between his teeth. "That gives you a polished granite stone with up to four lines of text, in the script of your choice."

"It's not enough," she said flatly.

"You want more lines then? We can certainly add them, at only five Galleons a…"

"No," she said, "I mean it's not enough money. I need to spend more."

"O-o-oh, I see…" the man coughed discreetly. "How much did you have in mind to spend?"

"Two hundred eighty Galleons, nine Sickles, and two Knuts."

The man's mouth dropped open, and the silver toothpick fell to the floor and rolled under the counter.

"It's sort of a joke," Ginny tried to explain. "A debt I owed my late husband."

"Of course. I see." Clearly, he did _not_ see.

She felt she had to explain. "We had this ongoing tournament; Dragons and Dwarves. Have you ever played?"

"Well…"

"And my husband always won. In the end, I owed him two hundred eighty Galleons, nine Sickles, and two Knuts. I'd like to pay off my debt to him this way."

The man looked astonished. "Surely your late husband never meant for you to really _pay_ him the money?"

"No, of course he didn't. But I think he would like the idea: I think it would make him laugh."

• • • • •

On a rare, beautiful day in October Ginny went, together with her parents, Betsy, Lowen, Fiona, and David, and scattered his ashes over the pool at the base of the waterfall. Afterwards, she sent everyone back to the house and stood alone for awhile, under a rowan tree, and watched the water spill endlessly from the cavern high above her. She thought of the winter night they had slid through the frozen cave on their brooms, diving and rolling in the air. If she tried hard enough, she could imagine she heard just an echo of their laughter in the water that roared down before her. As she strained to catch the sound of it, the sun broke through a cloud and a breeze ruffled the branches above her. Ginny closed her eyes and lifted her face to the heavens as the golden sunlight streamed over her, and around her the yellow rowan leaves rained down like a benediction.

• • • • •

Two days after the funeral, she went back to work. Little had changed in the office, but this came as no surprise because after all, no one there knew she had even been married. She found the normalcy a welcome relief from the sadness of home.

That same day, Harry came to see her. She was trying to concentrate on finishing an overdue report when she heard the light rap on her office door. She looked up, and was startled to see him standing there. She stood up, herself. "Come in."

He came, and took the chair she motioned him towards. She waited, expectantly, but Harry did not speak. Instead, he sat forward, with his elbows resting on his knees, and gazed silently at the floor. At last, she asked gently, "How are you, Harry?"

He looked up at her then, and she was shocked by the naked pain in his eyes. "I should be the one asking you that," he said.

She came around and sat on the edge of her desk. "Harry, I had no choice but to marry Draco Malfoy."

"I know. I don't blame you for that. I suppose…" He cut himself off and raked a hand through hair that was already dishevelled. He attempted a rueful grin, though Ginny could perceive little humour in it. "I suppose I just wish you hadn't enjoyed it so much."

"Yes," she said abruptly, "well, that's over now, isn't it?" She was not going to sit here and listen to recriminations from Harry Potter, of all people.

He didn't answer right away, but after awhile, he said, "I'm sorry, Ginny."

"What's there to be sorry about?"

"It's meant to be a condolence, not an apology."

"Oh. Well… thank you."

They sat until the silence grew awkward between them. Ginny got up and went around to the top desk of her drawer, unlocking it. From inside, she withdrew a wrinkled scrap of parchment. "I have something for you, Harry."

He took the parchment, opened it and read it, then looked at her, puzzled.

"It's the name of the man who calls himself The Baron."

Harry's eyebrows went up, and he started to speak, but Ginny interrupted him.

"There's more information too, in my late husband's private office. I don't have a key, but if you can find a Spell Weaver – someone who can get into the room without destroying the house – you're welcome to any evidence you find there. I want this man destroyed."

Harry whistled softly. "I think we can arrange that."

• • • • •

She sold the vineyards, and Journey's End, and put enough money into Gringotts to make her a rich woman by anyone's standards. That winter, Ginny moved back to London, where she let a flat in a quiet neighbourhood. She could not bring herself to think of selling Four Winds just yet. Instead, she hired a housekeeper and a gardener to keep the place in decent repair until the day she would decide what to do with it.

In the spring, Auror Special Forces offered her a post, and Ginny accepted. Her life moved forward, on the surface, as she had always hoped it would. She was learning new and exciting things at work. Most Saturday nights, she had dinner with her brothers and their wives at The Burrow. Harry came around more often, until he began to be a regular fixture in her weekend plans. It was almost as though her year at Four Winds had never happened: as if Draco Malfoy, and their love for each other, had existed only inside her imagination.

And yet, once a year, every year until she was an old, old woman with many grandchildren and great-grandchildren, Ginny paid a visit to a waterfall high on a fell side in the Scottish Cairngorms. She knew it had been real, and if she ever doubted it, she only needed to go back to that place to convince herself of it again.

Draco Malfoy had been real. For a short time, she had loved him with every particle of her being, and he had loved her back. Their love, she was convinced, had changed him. She knew it had changed her. As time went on and she grew older, she came to understand that there were many different ways to love another person. Some were long loves in the same direction, like the love she had for the man she grew old with. That kind of love had a time-won beauty to it like the rich patina of rare wood. Other loves were unexpected, burning hot and bright, and in the shortest time possible could reshape a person forever. Both were good; both were right.

Ginny revisited the waterfall until the year she died, when she was one hundred and forty-seven years old. Each year, she came alone and she sat, sometimes on a fallen log, sometimes on a stone. She listened for the old voices, let the memories wash over her, fill her soul, remind her. And every year she thanked God that the Curse of the Firstborn had been a part of her life. It had been a curse, yes, but it had been a blessing too. Not many people got to live the kind of year she had lived: to love the kinds of love she had known.

She was a lucky woman.

**THE END**

• • • • •

_**A/N:** Thank you to all of you who've read and reviewed with such enthusiasm, and sometimes, with an honesty that was difficult for me to read, but nevertheless which helped me to become a better writer.  
If you've read this story, but never reviewed, why not do it now? I'd love to know what you think. Cheers!_


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